A major outage struck Microsoft platforms, including Outlook, on Thursday, leaving many users unable to access their email accounts or facing other errors across the company’s suite of apps. As of around 1:30 p.m. ET, over 120,000 users reported issues on Downdetector, with complaints ranging from inability to send and receive emails to significant delays. Problems also affected Microsoft Teams, Copilot, and other Microsoft 365 services.
Microsoft acknowledged the outage, stating it was investigating reports of users struggling to access Exchange Online mailboxes in the Americas. The company later noted that a portion of its infrastructure was experiencing elevated load, which it believed was contributing to connectivity errors. Microsoft said it would begin redistributing traffic to balance the load but did not provide further details.
Earlier in the day, Microsoft reported that it had successfully restored issues related to Microsoft Teams in North America. However, some users continued to report connectivity problems, indicating that the outage may not have been fully resolved.