The Microsoft 365 outage that knocked out Outlook on Thursday, November 12, 2026, is still not fully fixed on Friday, November 13. Microsoft now says it sees "early signs of stabilisation", but capacity is not back to normal, and GPs, police forces, government offices and businesses in dozens of countries are still affected.[28][29][30] It started when Outlook went down for thousands of people on Thursday, November 12, 2026. Microsoft says users cannot reach their Exchange Online mailboxes "through multiple connection methods", a problem that started in the Americas and that the company now says "may affect Microsoft 365 service connectivity for users in any region". It is tracking the problem as incident EX1550543.[1][2][3] Work and school mailboxes are the ones hit. Microsoft's consumer status page still listed Outlook.com as operational at 18:29 GMT.[5] At about 4 p.m. ET (21:00 GMT) Microsoft said a new way of running its server health checks had brought some affected servers back online, and it was rolling the fix out more widely.[16][17] That did not hold: shortly after 5 p.m. ET Microsoft said its actions "have not provided the anticipated relief" and blamed a "core process" on the affected servers that was becoming overwhelmed. At about 23:06 GMT it said a portion of the servers was back in service and "stable so far", with only limited recovery.[19][20][21] Overnight some of those servers failed again once traffic returned, and at about 02:00 GMT on Friday Microsoft said it was seeing "positive results", but services were still not fully back.[24][25][26]
 | |
| Date | Thursday, November 12, 2026[1][2] |
|---|---|
| Service | Exchange Online (Outlook for work and school accounts)[2][4] |
| Incident ID | EX1550543[1][3] |
| Started | Americas, US business hours[1][2] |
| Reach | "May affect" users in any region[1][3] |
| Error seen | "Failed to fetch", blank inbox, emails not sending[1][3] |
| Outlook.com | Listed as operational (18:29 GMT)[5] |
| Cause given | "Elevated load" on part of the infrastructure[12] |
| Status (19:30 GMT) | Fix under way, servers being restarted; no end time given[12][13] |
| Cause (latest) | A "core process" on affected servers "becoming overwhelmed, causing capacity loss"[20][21] |
| Status (23:30 GMT) | Some servers back and "stable so far"; limited recovery, no end time[19][21] |
| Status (Fri 12:00 GMT) | "Encouraging recovery progress"; intermittent issues remain; email backlog being cleared[34][35] |
| Status (Fri morning) | "Early signs of stabilisation"; capacity not yet normal[28][29][30] |
| Delayed email | Timeout window extended to 48 hours[30][31] |
| Root cause | Full report promised after recovery[30][31] |
| Peak reports | More than 130,000 on Downdetector[20][21][22] |
| Teams | Restored, Microsoft says[13] |
Latest: what Microsoft says it is doing
"Encouraging recovery progress" (Friday, about 12:00 GMT). In its latest update on X, posted at 7 a.m. ET according to ZDNET, Microsoft said: "We're seeing encouraging recovery progress, with service availability and email delivery performance improving across a growing portion of affected Microsoft 365 infrastructure."[34][35] It added that "some users may still experience intermittent issues as recovery actions continue", and that it is "prioritizing email queue and backlog reduction". The 48-hour email timeout window stays in place, so delayed messages should still arrive.[34][35]
So this is better, but not over. ZDNET notes that users replying to Microsoft on X were still reporting no access, mainly to Outlook, on Friday morning, and Microsoft still has not confirmed the cause.[34] ABC News says the company also reported "early stabilization and capacity improvements as recovery actions continue."[35]
"Early signs of stabilisation", delayed mail kept for 48 hours (Friday morning, GMT). On its Microsoft 365 status page Microsoft said: "We are seeing early signs of stabilisation, but service capacity has not yet returned to normal levels and health remains variable as traffic is carefully reintroduced."[28][30][31] It also said it was "extending the email timeout window to 48 hours to help protect delayed messages while service recovery continues". In plain terms, mail that is stuck should still be delivered once the servers catch up, rather than bounce, as long as it gets through inside that window.[30][31]
Microsoft has also promised to "share a full post-incident report with root cause and defence-in-depth actions after recovery is complete". So the real reason the servers fell over is not public yet.[30][31] Microsoft had already explained that a large number of servers became "unexpectedly unavailable", which pushed extra traffic onto the ones left and overloaded them, and that the load did not come from a rise in normal traffic.[28][29]
Who is still affected. Al Jazeera reports that Downdetector had at least 43,000 Outlook reports from 72 countries at about 07:00 GMT on Friday, and the PA news agency says users in about 60 countries, mostly in Europe and Asia, were still reporting trouble later in the morning.[29][30] Government systems in Singapore and Japan, the Supreme Court of the Philippines and Australia's spy agency and federal police have been hit, according to Al Jazeera and the BBC.[28][29] OpenAI and Anthropic both said tools that connect to Microsoft 365 were not working as expected.[28][32]
| Service | What is happening |
|---|---|
| GP surgeries | Some ask patients not to send online messages; phone or visit if urgent[28][33] |
| Pharmacies | Waits may be longer, some prescriptions delayed (National Pharmacy Association)[30][33] |
| Police | Online report forms affected; forces ask people to call 101, or 999 in an emergency[30][33] |
| Government | Working with Microsoft to assess the impact; contingency plans in place[30][33] |
Fixes "not taking as expected", no sign of an attack (04:00 to 06:10 GMT, Friday). Just before 11 p.m. ET (about 04:00 GMT) Microsoft said: "We've monitored the status of the changes applied to improve serviceability and confirmed they're not taking as expected." It added that it was "identifying alternate workstreams that can be applied to increase capacity", without giving a time for a full fix.[26][27] At about 1:08 a.m. ET (06:08 GMT) Microsoft said it was still looking into the cause but was "not aware of any malicious activity that is causing this incident".[26] AFP reports that the outage hit users in 74 countries and territories, according to Downdetector.[27]
Restored servers fall over again, then "positive results" (00:00 to 02:30 GMT, Friday). After 7 p.m. ET (00:00 GMT) Microsoft said: "The servers we returned to service can become unresponsive again once they receive traffic; we're analyzing diagnostic data to determine what's triggering the behavior." It added that it was "temporarily limiting which types of traffic can reach the affected infrastructure in some locations".[24][26] Microsoft's status page now describes the cause as "a process on the affected servers responsible for establishing secure connections" that "becomes overwhelmed, causing the servers to stop processing requests". It has not said why that started, and it says it has not found a recent change that lines up with the start of the outage.[24][26]
At around 9 p.m. ET (about 02:00 GMT) Microsoft said it was seeing "positive results" as it restarted infrastructure, though Gizmodo notes the recovery was still happening "in an isolated manner".[24][25] Downdetector reports for Outlook fell to about 25,000 by roughly 9:38 p.m. ET, from a peak of around 130,000 early on Thursday afternoon US time.[24][26] The BBC says there is no sign that the outage was caused by a cyber attack.[25][24]
First fixes did not work (after 22:00 GMT). Shortly after 5 p.m. ET (about 22:10 GMT) Microsoft posted: "We're opening all available pathways to restore service, as our actions taken thus far have not provided the anticipated relief."[19][20][22] It said it had found that "a core process on affected servers is becoming overwhelmed, causing capacity loss", and that it was isolating part of its infrastructure, restarting the affected components and slowly letting traffic back in to check the servers stayed up before applying the change more widely.[20][21]
Some servers back (about 23:06 GMT). In its next update, at 10:06 a.m. in eastern Australia, Microsoft said it had started returning a portion of the affected servers to service and that they "remain stable so far". It said it was shifting traffic to other routes where it could and was seeing "limited recovery".[19][21] Microsoft has still not said when every mailbox will work again.[19][22]
Australia wakes up to the outage. Because the problem dragged on past the US working day, it hit Australia and New Zealand on Friday morning. IDM says the wider Microsoft 365 problem is tracked as a second incident, MO1550821, and lists Intune, Planner and Purview compliance tools among the affected services.[21] The Canberra Times reported that staff at Services Australia, Home Affairs and the National Disability Insurance Agency could not send or receive email, and Nine reported schools and government departments were affected.[23][20]
Earlier updates.
Recovery under way (about 21:00 GMT). At 4 p.m. ET Microsoft said it had "validated an alternative service health check method" that brought some affected servers back online. "We're now applying this change more broadly," it wrote, adding that it was "preparing automated recovery systems to continually detect and restart unresponsive servers".[16]
Microsoft has also explained the "elevated load" it blamed earlier. It said the load was not caused by more traffic but by "a large number of servers being unexpectedly unavailable", which pushed work onto the servers that were still up. Those servers were failing automated health checks, and Microsoft said the failures "may originate from a specific component that's responsible for processing server health". It said it had found no recent change that lines up with the outage.[16][17][18]
That is a cause for the symptoms, not yet a full root cause. Microsoft has not said why the health checks started failing or when every mailbox will be back. CNBC said about 130,000 users had reported Outlook problems on Downdetector at the peak.[16]
By about 19:00 GMT Microsoft had moved from "investigating" to fixing. In a post on X for admins who could not open the admin center, it said some of its infrastructure was seeing "elevated load" and that it had "begun redistributing connection traffic across our broader worldwide infrastructure to help balance the load".[12][14]
A later update, quoted by ABC News, went further: "We're aggressively pursuing all pathways to reduce impact. We've paused all deployments, we're moving additional traffic off the affected infrastructure, and we're restarting affected servers to return them to service."[13] ABC also reports that a separate Teams problem in North America was fixed, with Microsoft saying its "mitigative actions have successfully restored service health and functionality".[13]
Microsoft has not given a root cause beyond the load problem, and it has not said when email will be fully back. The reports are still large: 9to5Mac counted more than 100,000 Outlook reports on Downdetector during the day.[12][15]
Is it a cyber attack? Searches for "Microsoft cyber attack" are rising in the US, but nothing Microsoft has posted points to one. Its own explanation so far is elevated load on part of its servers, and none of the reports we checked mention one.[12][13] WIRED reported "no indication that a cyberattack caused the current Microsoft outage". Some people also reported problems with Amazon Web Services and Google on Downdetector, but Amazon said its services were "operating normally" and blamed "an unrelated disruption elsewhere on the internet".[16][18]
What is happening
Microsoft first posted on its Microsoft 365 Status account on X just before noon Central Time (about 18:00 GMT). It said: "We're investigating reports of users experiencing issues accessing Exchange Online mailboxes through multiple connection methods in the Americas."[2][4] A later post widened that: "While we're working to mitigate impact, we've confirmed the issue may affect Microsoft 365 service connectivity for users in any region."[1][3]
Exchange Online is the Microsoft server that runs email, calendars and contacts for businesses, schools and government offices that pay for Microsoft 365. When it fails, Outlook on the web, the Outlook desktop app and the Outlook phone app all lose their connection to the mailbox, which is why people are seeing the problem everywhere at once.[2][8]
Metro reports that people opening Outlook get a "Failed to fetch" error, and that when the page does load, inboxes can look empty and emails will not send.[1] The National says users also posted about error codes and frozen screens.[3]
How many people are affected?
Nobody outside Microsoft knows the real number yet. What we have are user reports on the outage tracker Downdetector, and they rose fast. NBC 5 Chicago counted more than 22,000 reports at 11:58 a.m. Central Time, with Chicago, Seattle and New York among the hot spots.[2] A Downdetector market flash then put US reports above 39,000, and Metro and KHQ quoted about 59,000 to 60,000.[6][1][4]
In the UK, Metro says reports started just after 5:20 p.m. and passed 3,300 within 20 minutes.[1] The National's highest figure was nearly 150,000 reports.[3] Later counts put the peak at more than 130,000 Outlook reports, and Downdetector said reports came from 74 countries and territories within about an hour.[21][22][20] These are complaints filed by users, so they show the size of the spike, not how many mailboxes are down.
Is it just Outlook?
Microsoft's own wording points at Exchange Online first, with wider Microsoft 365 connectivity possibly affected.[1][2] Both Metro and The National saw a spike in Downdetector reports for Copilot, Microsoft's AI assistant.[1][3] Reports on Teams disagree: Metro says hundreds of people in the UK were struggling with it, while The National said Teams was not affected when it published.[1][3]
Personal accounts look safer. Microsoft's public status page for consumer services, which covers Outlook.com, Teams Free, OneDrive and Copilot, showed every service as "Operational" when we checked at 18:29 GMT.[5] If your Hotmail or Outlook.com address works but your work email does not, that matches what Microsoft has said so far.
There is one more problem for IT teams. Microsoft keeps sending admins to the Microsoft 365 admin center for details, but The National reports that users said they could not log in to the admin center either.[3]
Outlook down? What to do now
You cannot fix an outage on Microsoft's servers from your desk, but you can avoid making things worse.
- Check before you troubleshoot. The Microsoft 365 Status account on X posts updates first. Admins can follow incident EX1550543 if the admin center loads.[1][2]
- Leave your password alone. Resetting it, removing your account or reinstalling Outlook will not help with a server-side outage, and it can leave you locked out once the service is back.
- Use what is already on your device. The Outlook desktop and phone apps usually keep a copy of recent mail, so older messages may still open even while new ones will not arrive.
- Send urgent things another way. Phone, text or a personal email address for anything that cannot wait.
- Check your Outbox afterwards. Emails you sent during the outage may sit there. Make sure they went out, or send them again.
Microsoft's year of Outlook outages
This is not the first time in 2026. On January 22, an Outlook outage that began in the middle of the US business day lasted nearly 11 hours, and users saw a "451 4.3.2 temporary server issue" error, CNBC reported.[7] On July 23, an outage hit Outlook, Teams and Xbox.[10][11] On August 31, thousands of business customers coming back from the weekend could not reach their email, and Microsoft confirmed problems with Exchange Online and other Microsoft 365 business services.[8] Computerworld reported that the August disruption went into a second day.[9]
Thursday's outage looks like August's, because once again Exchange Online is the part that broke and paying business customers are the ones who lost email. The National notes that August's outage was the last big one before today.[3]
Read also: our guide to Microsoft's November 2026 Patch Tuesday, which fixed an Outlook flaw that attackers were already using.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Microsoft outage fixed yet?
Not fully, as of Friday morning GMT on November 13. Microsoft says it sees "early signs of stabilisation" but capacity has not returned to normal.[28][30][31]
Will I lose emails sent during the outage?
Microsoft says it has extended the email timeout window to 48 hours so delayed messages are protected while it recovers. If something is urgent, send it another way or check with the sender later.[30][31]
Is Outlook down right now?
On November 12, 2026, yes for many work and school accounts. Microsoft confirmed an Exchange Online problem, incident EX1550543, and said it may affect users in any region. Check the Microsoft 365 Status account for the latest.[1][2]
Is Hotmail or Outlook.com down too?
Microsoft's consumer status page showed Outlook.com as operational at 18:29 GMT. The confirmed problem is with Exchange Online, which runs business and school mailboxes.[5][2]
Why does Outlook say "Failed to fetch"?
That error means the browser asked Microsoft's servers for your mail and got no answer back. During this outage it is a sign of the server problem, not of a fault on your computer.[1]
When will Outlook be fixed?
Microsoft has not given a time for full recovery. At about 04:00 GMT on Friday it said its latest changes were "not taking as expected" and that it was looking for other ways to increase capacity.[26][27] Shortly after 5 p.m. ET it said its earlier actions had not worked, and at about 23:06 GMT it said some servers were back and stable, with limited recovery so far.[19][21] At about 21:00 GMT it said a new health check method had brought some servers back and it was applying it more widely, with automated systems restarting unresponsive servers.[16] Earlier, at 19:30 GMT, it said it had paused deployments and was restarting affected servers.[13] Earlier it said it was "working to mitigate impact". The January outage lasted nearly 11 hours, but each outage is different.[1][7]
Was the Outlook outage a cyber attack?
Microsoft says no. At about 06:08 GMT on Friday it said it was "not aware of any malicious activity that is causing this incident".[26] It has blamed "elevated load" on part of its infrastructure and is moving traffic and restarting servers.[12][13]
Will I lose my emails?
Nothing Microsoft or the reports have said so far suggests mail is being deleted. The problem is reaching mailboxes. Emails you tried to send may be stuck in your Outbox.[1][2]
References
- "Is Outlook down? Thousands report issues with Microsoft email app". Metro. November 12, 2026. metro.co.uk
- "Is Microsoft Outlook down? Company investigates error reports from users". NBC 5 Chicago. November 12, 2026. nbcchicago.com
- "Microsoft Outlook down as thousands of users report issues". The National. November 12, 2026. thenational.scot
- "Microsoft confirms Outlook outage affecting customers accessing email services". KHQ. November 12, 2026. khq.com
- "Microsoft 365 (Consumer) service status". Microsoft. Checked 18:29 GMT, November 12, 2026. status.cloud.microsoft
- "User reports Microsoft Outlook down for over 39,000 users in the US: Downdetector". Moomoo News. November 12, 2026. moomoo.com
- "Microsoft fixes Outlook email issues". CNBC. January 22, 2026. cnbc.com
- "Microsoft acknowledges widespread Exchange Online problems". Mashable. August 31, 2026. mashable.com
- "Microsoft 365 outage enters second day as search disruptions persist". Computerworld. August 31, 2026. computerworld.com
- "Is Outlook down? Microsoft outage hits email, Teams, Xbox". The Seattle Times. July 23, 2026. seattletimes.com
- "Can't log in? Microsoft outage hits Teams, Outlook and more". FOX 13 Seattle. July 23, 2026. fox13seattle.com
- "Microsoft's Outlook email hit by new outage". TechCrunch. November 12, 2026. techcrunch.com
- "Outlook outage: Microsoft reports 'issues' with Teams and email". ABC News. November 12, 2026. abcnews.com
- "Microsoft investigates widespread Microsoft 365 outage". KSAT. November 12, 2026. ksat.com
- "Microsoft Outlook experiencing widespread outage". 9to5Mac. November 12, 2026. 9to5mac.com
- "Microsoft outage hits Outlook. AWS and Google users also report issues". CNBC. November 12, 2026 (updated 22:24 GMT). cnbc.com
- "Microsoft outage: What the company has said so far". Mashable. November 12, 2026. mashable.com
- "Major Microsoft Outlook Outage Leaves People With Email Jobs Unable to Email". WIRED. November 12, 2026. wired.com
- "When will the global Microsoft Outlook outage be fixed? What we know". Mashable. November 12, 2026 (updated 6:23 p.m. ET). mashable.com
- "Microsoft services down in global outage". Nine.com.au. November 13, 2026 (AEDT; updated 23:12 GMT, Nov 12). nine.com.au
- "Friday 13th outage hits Teams, Outlook and Purview". IDM. November 13, 2026 (AEDT). idm.net.au
- "Microsoft 365 Outage: Outlook, Teams and Copilot Down for Hours as Microsoft Says Its Fixes Haven't Worked". Culture Alberta. November 12, 2026. culturealberta.com
- "'We're at the whim of Microsoft': APS staff left in dark on major outage". The Canberra Times. November 13, 2026 (AEDT). canberratimes.com.au
- "Microsoft 365 Outage Stretches Late Into the Evening, With Services Like Outlook and Teams Still Unstable". Gizmodo. November 13, 2026 (03:10 GMT). gizmodo.com
- "Microsoft struggling to restore service as global outage affects Outlook and Teams". BBC News. November 13, 2026 (updated 02:38 GMT). bbc.com
- "Microsoft Outlook outage cause: What happened today". Mashable. November 13, 2026 (updated 1:08 a.m. ET, Nov 13). mashable.com
- "Microsoft battling to fix global Outlook outage". AFP via Yahoo Finance. November 13, 2026. sg.finance.yahoo.com
- BBC News, "What we know about the global Microsoft outage", 13 November 2026. bbc.com
- Al Jazeera, "Microsoft hit by global outages: What happened and why?", 13 November 2026. aljazeera.com
- The Independent (PA), "Microsoft seeing 'signs of stabilisation' in scramble to fix global outage", 13 November 2026. independent.co.uk
- London Evening Standard (PA), "Microsoft seeing 'signs of stabilisation' in scramble to fix global outage", 13 November 2026. standard.co.uk
- DW, "Microsoft attempts to fix Outlook and Teams global outage", 13 November 2026. dw.com
- BBC News, "GPs, police and pharmacies among UK services affected by Microsoft outage", 13 November 2026. bbc.co.uk
- ZDNET, "Microsoft outage continues into Friday: what we know", 13 November 2026. zdnet.com
- ABC News, "Microsoft Outlook outage updates: 'Progress toward recovery' as email disruption now on 2nd day", 13 November 2026. abcnews.com