Microsoft confirms Outlook outage affecting customers accessing email services

A widespread Microsoft Outlook outage was reported by users, impacting Microsoft 365, Teams, and Copilot across multiple regions. According to Fox Business, Microsoft 365 users experienced connectivity errors as the company worked to resolve an hours-long outage caused by elevated system loads. SFGATE noted that thousands of users reported problems accessing Microsoft 365 services Thursday morning, with outages peaking at 10:19 a.m. with over 130,0n0 reports according to Downdetector data cited by Fox Business. SFGATE reported that Downdetector received issues shortly before 9:30 a.m. Fox Business reported that data showed more than 130,000 problems had been reported as of 2 p.m. Thursday. SFGATE stated that reports to Downdetector later reduced significantly, showing around 35,000 reports as of 3:13 p.m. Microsoft confirmed reports of outages in the Americas on X and later added that users in any region could be affected. Fox Business reported that an alert from the Microsoft Admin Center stated the elevated load was the result of a number of servers being unexpectedly unavailable, straining the remaining infrastructure, rather than an increase in traffic. Microsoft stated on X, as reported by Fox Business, that a core process on affected servers was becoming overwhelmed, causing capacity loss. Cybersecurity expert Leeza Garber explained to Fox Business that there was so much happening on a lesser amount of servers simply because there were fewer servers available, noting that this kind of problem is pretty simplistic but can shut everything down at the scale Microsoft operates on. Microsoft announced it was aggressively pursuing all pathways to reduce impact, pausing all deployments, moving additional traffic off affected infrastructure, and restarting affected servers. Microsoft stated it was isolating a portion of infrastructure, restarting affected components, and reintroducing traffic to confirm stability. Fox Business reported that by 6:30 p.m. ET, Microsoft said it was opening all available pathways to restore service because actions taken thus far had not provided the anticipated relief. In an 8:59 p.m. ET update, Microsoft reported progress in restoring service and recovering server availability. Later updates at 10:13 p.m. ET and 11:36 p.m. ET indicated that efforts were not producing the expected results and improvements had not been sustained. Fox Business noted that Microsoft 365 has roughly 321 million users globally according to Dynamics Connect. Portland Fire & Rescue in Oregon stated that anyone sending an email to agency employees might experience delayed replies, though emergency crews were still being dispatched for calls, according to Fox Business. The White House did not immediately respond to Fox Business requests for comment.