Global Microsoft services outage disrupts users worldwide

On Thursday, November 12, 2026, Microsoft experienced a massive, prolonged outage affecting core services including Outlook, Microsoft 365, Teams, Copilot, OneDrive, and the Microsoft Store. At the peak of the disruption, Downdetector recorded approximately 140,000 reports of issues, with widespread connectivity problems documented across 74 countries, including the United States, Japan, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and Australia.

The technical failure persisted for over eight hours, significantly disrupting communication and workflow for businesses and individuals globally. While initial reports highlighted issues primarily with Exchange Online mailboxes in the Americas, the problem quickly escalated to a global scale. Microsoft's official status page was also rendered inaccessible during the incident.

Microsoft attributed the outages to an infrastructure overload caused by an unexpected server shutdown. The company issued updates via the Microsoft 365 Status social media account and directed users to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center, specifically entry EX1550543, for technical details. Following extensive efforts by engineering teams, the company reported that restoration efforts began to take effect after the eight-hour window of instability.