Microsoft Reports Recovery Progress After Worldwide Outlook, Teams Disruption

Microsoft has reported significant progress in restoring its services after a global outage disrupted Outlook, Teams and other Microsoft 365 applications, leaving users and organisations struggling with communications.

In an update on Friday, November 13, the technology company said email queues had reduced considerably and were approaching normal levels, as recovery efforts continued across affected regions.

Microsoft said it was observing improvements in North America and Europe, with encouraging recovery signals also emerging in the Asia-Pacific region. However, it warned that some customers could still experience intermittent access problems and delays in receiving emails.

The disruption began on Thursday, November 12, and affected several Microsoft services, including Outlook, Exchange Online, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive and its artificial intelligence assistant, Copilot.

Users reported difficulties accessing inboxes, sending and receiving messages, joining online meetings and retrieving files. The outage also affected businesses, government agencies, schools and public services that rely on Microsoft’s cloud-based platforms for daily operations.

Reports from outage-tracking platform Downdetector surged during the disruption, with tens of thousands of users reporting problems. The scale of the incident prompted organisations in several countries to rely on alternative communication channels while Microsoft worked to restore access.

In the United Kingdom, the disruption reportedly affected some National Health Service operations, schools and public services. Other countries also reported interruptions to government and business communications.

Microsoft said it had found no indication that the outage was caused by malicious or cyber activity. The company has been working to stabilise affected infrastructure, restore remaining services and clear delayed email backlogs.

The recovery process has not been straightforward. Some servers brought back online reportedly became unresponsive again when traffic returned, complicating efforts to restore normal operations.

Microsoft has continued to monitor its infrastructure and prioritise the processing of delayed emails as it works towards full recovery.

The incident has renewed concerns about the dependence of businesses and public institutions on a small number of major cloud service providers, with technology experts stressing the importance of backup systems and alternative communication arrangements.