Microsoft 365 Global Outage Hits Outlook, Teams, and Copilot Services
More than 131,000 reports flooded Downdetector as a severe global outage hit Microsoft 365, disrupting corporate email, messaging, and artificial intelligence tools for users.
The tracking platform recorded a peak of 138,058 reports of problems with Outlook towards 13:00 Eastern Time, with the figure dropping to about 34,490 by the end of the afternoon. At 17:47 Eastern Time, the site also registered nearly 13,000 reports regarding Microsoft 365 and 763 regarding Teams, while affected users globally may reach millions.
The disruption began on Thursday, November 12, 2026, initially manifesting as email delivery failures across the Americas before cascading into a worldwide platform failure, BioBioChile reported. At 14:54 in Chile (12:54 on the east coast of the United States), Microsoft acknowledged in its X account that something was wrong.
According to El PAÍS, services including Exchange Online, Copilot, and others experienced issues as connection methods failed across multiple regions. Mashable reported that users had trouble entering Exchange Online, Teams, SharePoint Online, Copilot 365, and Defender XDR.
OpenAI and Anthropic confirmed that the underlying infrastructure strain also impacted their respective connectors linked to Microsoft services. OpenAI indicated it was investigating an issue with Microsoft connectors where new connections could be interrupted, and Anthropic stated it identified a problem with a higher-level tier provider affecting its Microsoft 365 connector.
We determined the elevated load isn't driven by an increase in traffic, but by a number of servers being unexpectedly unavailable; straining the remaining infrastructure. We're working to safely return them to service. More info under EX1550543 and MO1550821 in the Microsoft 365…
Microsoft acknowledged the escalating crisis via its official status channel on X, noting that several servers had unexpectedly failed automated health checks and dropped out of service, which overloaded the remaining network infrastructure.
La Tercera reported that the company explicitly ruled out an unexpected surge in incoming web traffic as the root cause of the crash. In the United States, at 18:15 GMT, the platform accumulated more than 131,000 notifications of problems with Outlook, and towards 18:30 GMT, Downdetector recorded an increase in reports from the United Kingdom.
“We’ve confirmed the issue may affect Microsoft 365 service connectivity for users in any region,” Microsoft said on X, pointing administrative personnel to tracking code EX1550543 inside the management portal for real-time updates. The company also opened a second incident identified as MO1550821, with details accessible only to organization administrators in the Microsoft 365 admin center, as detailed in the official Microsoft 365 status updates at 22:11 UTC.
To alleviate the strain, engineers began rerouting traffic away from compromised servers toward wider global infrastructure. The company temporarily halted all routine deployment schedules and configuration changes while testing corrective software patches. Microsoft stated previously that it was working on “an alternative method” to re-establish services, adding later, “Now we are applying this change more broadly.”
By late Thursday evening, monitoring platforms recorded a gradual decrease in user complaints as engineers restarted affected equipment and brought stabilized servers back online. Nevertheless, administrative panels maintained service degradation warnings for enterprise and business tiers as technical teams worked to verify complete system recovery.
While we're working to mitigate impact, we've confirmed the issue may affect Microsoft 365 service connectivity for users in any region, more information will be provided in the Microsoft 365 admin center under EX1550543.