Microsoft Outlook might be down for many. Reports of outages from across the US started coming in around 12:30 PM ET. On DownDetector, there are over 120,000 concurrent reports.
Other connected services like Microsoft Teams. Microsoft 365, Copilot, and Ondreive are also gettign reports. More tellingly,. we could not open Microsoft’s own services status ((https://status.cloud.microsoft/) page to check on the status of Microsoft services.
Microsoft’s cloud services, Azure, also had reports of service issues, which may account for the wide-spread nature of these outages.
On social media, people have bene reporting their inability to reach the services like Outlook. On X (formerly Twitter) is where we saw evidence that the outage may extend globally.
Follow along as we track this continuing, and apparently widespread Outlook outage.
Our first indication that something was awry with Outlook was on Downdetector, which noted a sharp rise in reports of service outages for Outlook. Microsoft 365, Microsoft Store, Microsoft Copilot, Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, and Microsoft Azure.
It’s worth noting that users report these issues to Downdetector. Microsoft has yet to comment or confirm any of this.
We’ve contacted Microsoft for comment and will update this live blog when they reply.
(Image credit: Future)
Not everything is offline
There are some indications that the situation is worsening. While we were able to access OneDrive online 30 minutes ago, the site is no longer responding.
The pain is being felt by individuals and organizations, such as universities, where entire email systems are now inaccessible.
(Image credit: Future)
When one service catches a cold…
A look at DownDetector indicates that it’s not just Outlook and Microsoft services that are struggling. However, these user-based reports can be misleading. Sometimes when people can’t access one service connected to larger services, they assume it’s their local one.
We checked, for instance, AWS’s status page and found no widespread reports of outages.
(Image credit: Future)
Microsoft knows
A Microsoft 365 support account has acknowledged the issues across “the Americas” and wrote, “We’re investigating reports of users experiencing issues accessing Exchange Online mailboxes through multiple connection methods in the Americas. More details can be found in the Microsoft 365 admin center under EX1550543.”
So they’re investigating, but there’s no news of a fix, just that they’re working to mitigate it.
We’re investigating reports of users experiencing issues accessing Exchange Online mailboxes through multiple connection methods in the Americas. More details can be found in the Microsoft 365 admin center under EX1550543.November 12, 2026
What, we work?
Millions rely on Microsoft tools like Outlook and OneDrive to get work done. When they’re offline, well, as you can see below, things kind of slow down.
When Outlook stops working…I stop working too https://t.co/LYVTTTA1TJNovember 12, 2026
We’re still not here
By 2:25 PM ET, DownDetector was showing a small slowdown in outage reports across Microsoft services, but social media is still filled with posts about the ongoing Outlook outage that is across the US and the rest of the Americas.
(Image credit: Future)
Some perspective
Sure, millions can’t access work and personal emails, but they still have social media where they can complain or at least take their minds off the fact that a huge chunk of Microsoft products are currently not functioning. As this X user notes, at least social media isn’t out.
The MS Outlook outage is annoying and everything, but at least it isn’t Instagram. Imagine having that go down and have to scroll work emails instead.November 12, 2026
What is real
As we noted earlier, big outages like this can have a knock-on effect. That’s likely why cloud provider Cloudflare has popped up here on DownDetector, along with Google and Gmail. To be clear, there’s no other indication that these services are experiencing similar outages.
(Image credit: Future)
Microsoft’s status page still isn’t loading
We’re still waiting for another update from Microsoft 365 Status on X (formerly Twitter), but if you’re hoping to check the company’s direct status page, you’ll hit a roadblock. Why? Well, the actual status page appears to be down as well and will not load.
Let’s take a look at Down Detector
Alright, it’s clear that the main services seeing outages, and in turn being effectively down for users right now, are Outlook as well as Microsoft 365, but Down Detector is currently showing a slight dip towards recovery. Even so, many users are still reporting errors.
In fact, even with the dip, Microsoft Outlook still shows over 77,000 reports. That is down from the high, as of yet, of over 131,000 reports.
(Image credit: Down Detector)
Microsoft is rolling out a fix or two
Some good news correlating with that slight dip on Down Detector: it appears that Microsoft’s team is on the case and is now testing a fix, well, more specifically, two fixes concurrently. It seems that a main culprit was servers failing automated health checks and, as a result, becoming unavailable to users.
To address that, Microsoft is testing a configuration change and, at the same time, restarting each affected service to let them ‘return to service.’ That’s a good sign all around.
We’re testing a configuration change to address a problem that’s causing servers to fail automated health checks and become unavailable. In parallel, we’ve initiated a restart of all affected servers and are monitoring health as they return to service. More info under EX1550543 and MO1550821 in the Microsoft 365 admin center, as well as https://t.co/pYdahqxDv3 if the admin center is not available to you.November 12, 2026
While Microsoft’s teams are working on a fix, impacted folks are still taking to social networks like X and Threads to comment and even offer a bit of joy in light of not being able to use Outlook or other 365 essentials.
Blue-collar workers while Outlook is down https://t.co/OiZbbU7YVHNovember 12, 2026
Microsoft Outlook is down in the middle of the workday? That’s unfortunate… https://t.co/HAeoE8zF19November 12, 2026
Microsoft’s 365 Status page is back online
This is likely a good sign — Microsoft’s own 365 Status Page is back up and loading again, confirming the active issue: “Service degradation on Microsoft 365 (Business or Enterprise).“
The message reads in full:
User impact: Users may be unable to connect to multiple Microsoft 365 services.
More info: Potentially impacted services include:
– Exchange Online
– Microsoft Teams
– SharePoint Online
– Microsoft Copilot 365
– Microsoft Defender XDR
Current status: We’re aggressively pursuing all pathways to reduce impact. As a precaution, we’ve paused all deployments and configuration changes while we review recent changes for any correlation to this event. We’ve determined that the elevated load isn’t driven by an overall increase in traffic, but by a large number of servers being unexpectedly unavailable, which is shifting load onto the remaining infrastructure. We’re investigating what’s causing these servers to become unavailable while we work to safely return them to service.
Scope of impact: This issue may affect users attempting to access the affected Microsoft 365 services.
Next update by: Thursday, November 12, 2026, at 10:00 PM UTC
Microsoft has provided another update on the 365 Status account on X, writing, “We’ve not identified any recent change correlated with the start of impact; however, our investigation indicates the failed health checks may originate from a specific component that’s responsible for processing server health.”
It continues, “We’ve taken steps to prevent additional servers from being impacted while we work to return the affected servers to service.” So it’s clear there is some more work to do to get this resolved, and it is focused on mitigating further impact on the affected servers. We’re waiting for a solution to resolve the issues. Let us know in the comments if you’re still impacted.
We’ve not identified any recent change correlated with the start of impact; however, our investigation indicates the failed health checks may originate from a specific component that’s responsible for processing server health. We’ve taken steps to prevent additional servers from being impacted while we work to return the affected servers to service. More info under EX1550543 and MO1550821 in the Microsoft 365 admin center, as well as https://t.co/pYdahqxDv3 if the admin center is not available to you.November 12, 2026
You have to laugh, right?
When times get tough, humor carries the day. Posts across social media feature people venting their anger, frustration, and concern, but there are the jokers. This Threads post on the ongoing outage was one of our favorites.
A silver lining for one?
You know the one person who might be happy about this outage? Former Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. This is the one tech story big enough (the outage spans countries) to push aside the wild story of his ouster. Leaves us wondering if Nvidia is a Microsoft services house.
Also, shouldn’t AI be able to figure out what’s going on here?
(Image credit: Getty Images)
We’re almost back, baby
We may be turning a corner. Microsoft at 402PM ET reported on X that it had built and validated a new “alternative health check method” to replace the one that kept shutting services down. The fix is so good that “a subset of affected servers” have now “successfully returned to service.”
Microsoft adds that an automated system is checking on unresponsive servers and restarting them.
Put another way, it looks like, while Microsoft may not have discovered the root cause, it has built and deployed a fix. Your Outlook might be back before you know it.
We’ve validated an alternative service health check method, which allowed a subset of affected servers to successfully return to service. We’re now applying this change more broadly. We’re also preparing automated recovery systems to continually detect and restart unresponsive servers, to maintain service stability while this change progresses. More info under EX1550543 and MO1550821 in the Microsoft 365 admin center, as well as https://t.co/pYdahqxDv3 if the admin center is not available to you.November 12, 2026
Source: Latest from TechRadar US in Internet News
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