A widespread Microsoft outage Thursday cut off access to work and school email, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, Copilot and a growing list of other Microsoft 365 services, leaving businesses, schools and government offices across the Americas and beyond without their main communication tools for most of the workday.
As of Microsoft’s most recent update at press time, issued at 2:11 p.m. PST, the company said the steps it had taken so far “have not provided the anticipated relief.” Microsoft has not given an estimate for when service will be fully restored. The company said its next update would come by 3:30 p.m. PST.
How It Unfolded
The first trouble showed up in Teams. Microsoft logged a Teams incident in North America beginning at 6:45 a.m., then marked it restored a little over an hour later.
At 8:17 a.m., Microsoft opened a separate incident for users who could not reach their Exchange Online mailboxes. Exchange Online is the Microsoft system that runs email and calendars for most businesses, schools and public agencies that use Microsoft 365. When it fails, Microsoft’s email app, the web version and phone apps all lose their connection to the mailbox.
User complaints on the outage-tracking site Downdetector began spiking around 9:39 a.m. At 9:54 a.m., Microsoft posted on its Microsoft 365 Status account on X that it was investigating mailbox access problems “in the Americas.” Thirteen minutes later, the company said the problem could affect users “in any region.”
It’s difficult to know an accurate estimated number on how many actual workstations, or “customers” are affected. There are indications that it’s well over 200,000. It’s also good to keep in mind that a “customer” might be a single company with literally hundreds of computers and accounts connected to it. One part of the network can go down and affect an entire sections or regions of the whole network.
The list of affected services kept growing through the day. Microsoft’s confirmed list now includes:
Exchange Online (email and calendars on desktop, web and mobile)
Microsoft Teams
SharePoint Online
Microsoft 365 Copilot
Microsoft Planner and To Do
Microsoft Intune
Microsoft Defender XDR and Defender for Office 365
Microsoft Purview
Power BI (intermittent problems exporting some reports)
Microsoft 365 Apps admin center
Users also reported problems with OneDrive. Downdetector showed a spike in reports for Azure, Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, but Microsoft’s incident did not list Azure and the Azure status page showed no problems.
For part of the afternoon, Microsoft’s own service status page and the admin center that IT managers use to track incidents would not load. Microsoft directed customers to status.cloud.microsoft when the admin center was unavailable.
The impact reached public agencies. The State of Michigan’s technology department posted that email and other Microsoft applications were down and that responses to email could be delayed. Universities reported entire campus email systems were unreachable.
What Microsoft Says Is Wrong
Microsoft’s explanation has shifted as engineers worked the problem.
Around 10:35 a.m., the company said part of its infrastructure was under “elevated load” across multiple regions. About an hour later, it clarified that the load was not caused by a surge in users. Instead, a number of servers had unexpectedly gone offline, piling the work onto the servers that remained.
At about 11:12 a.m., Microsoft said it had paused all software deployments, moved traffic off the affected equipment and begun restarting servers.
Shortly before noon, the company said it was testing a configuration change aimed at servers that were failing automated health checks and dropping out of service. At 12:19 p.m., it said no recent change lined up with the start of the outage and pointed to a component that processes server health as a possible source.
Around 1 p.m., Microsoft reported its first real progress. A different health-check method allowed some affected servers to return to service, and the company said it was applying that fix more broadly, along with automated systems to detect and restart unresponsive servers. At 1:41 p.m., Microsoft said it was also weighing whether reversing a small number of recent configuration updates could speed recovery.
That progress stalled. In its 2:11 p.m. update, Microsoft said a core process on the affected servers was becoming overwhelmed, causing the servers to stop responding. The company said it was fully isolating a portion of its infrastructure, restarting components there and slowly reintroducing traffic to test whether the approach holds before using it everywhere. Microsoft said it was also considering isolating each region so affected areas could recover on their own.
Microsoft has not announced a root cause.
Who Is Affected
The outage has hit hardest at work, school and government accounts that run on Microsoft 365. Deadline reported that Microsoft considered its standalone consumer email service operational, though some people with personal accounts said they could not get in either.
Downdetector also showed reports for Google, Gmail and Cloudflare during the afternoon, but TechRadar found no other sign those services were down. Amazon Web Services said it was operating normally and noted inaccurate reports of problems on its platform. Downdetector relies on user complaints, and reports for unrelated services can rise during a major outage.
What To Do If You Are Affected
Check the official source. Microsoft’s status page is status.cloud.microsoft, and updates are also posted on the Microsoft 365 Status account on X. IT administrators can track incidents EX1550543 and MO1550821 in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
Do not reinstall or rebuild. The problem is on Microsoft’s end. On-Site Technology, an IT services firm that published guidance on the outage, advised against deleting email profiles or reinstalling Office, noting a new profile can wipe out the copy of your mail stored on your computer.
Keep the desktop app open. If your desktop email program was already running with a saved local copy of your mailbox, recent messages and calendar items may still be readable even while the connection is down.
Move urgent business to phone or text. Call or text anyone you need to reach, and let clients and customers know how to contact you. A short notice on your website or social media accounts can head off missed appointments.
Watch for scams. Be wary of anyone who calls or emails claiming to be Microsoft support, asks for your password or offers to fix the outage for you. Do not click links in messages about the outage; go directly to Microsoft’s status page instead.
Students should contact instructors directly. If an assignment or exam relies on school email, Teams or OneDrive, reach your instructor or school by phone or another channel and keep a record of when you tried to submit.
Business owners should keep notes. Record what stopped working and when. According to On-Site Technology, credits under Microsoft’s service agreement are not automatic; an account administrator must file a claim, typically by the end of the month after the incident.
Expect a slow return. When service comes back, apps may take time to resync and delayed messages and notifications may arrive all at once. Microsoft’s notices describe a problem reaching mailboxes, and the company has not said any mail was lost.
A Rough Year for Microsoft 365
Thursday’s outage is not the first major Microsoft 365 failure this year. On Jan. 22, a Microsoft 365 outage that also took down business email lasted nearly 10 hours before Microsoft reported service restored. The company blamed part of its North American infrastructure that was not processing traffic as expected.
In late October 2025, a separate Microsoft outage took down its Azure cloud platform, Microsoft 365, Xbox and other services at the same time.
Have you tried turning it off and on again? Please standby.
