Microsoft 365 Outage Affects Outlook, Teams and Other Services

Microsoft is experiencing an outage for several of its Microsoft 365 services this afternoon. Initial reports focused on users being unable to access their email in Outlook, but more than one platform in its Microsoft 365 suite appears to be down. The company's support account on X acknowledged the issue.

At the time of writing, many Engadget staff were unable to even load Microsoft's service status page. Those who were saw a message that listed Exchange Online, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online, Microsoft Copilot 365 and Microsoft Defender XDR as the potentially impacted services. While the status report points to Business and Enterprise tiers of the 365 tools, individual users also appear to be impacted.

The full update states:

"We're investigating an issue impacting multiple Microsoft 365 services and we've determined the affected infrastructure is experiencing elevated load across multiple regions, which is likely contributing to the connectivity errors. We're restarting and repairing impacted portions of this infrastructure to restore capacity, and reviewing an unexpected increase in a specific type of service traffic to determine whether it's contributing to the elevated load. In parallel, we're evaluating options to redirect traffic to alternate infrastructure to expedite relief."

Microsoft said in a statement on X:

"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."

The company added:

"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."

Shortly after, the company added:

"We've determined a portion of infrastructure is experiencing elevated load across multiple regions, which is likely contributing to the connectivity errors."

Reports of the apparent connectivity issues began spiking shortly after noon Eastern. Around 1:30 pm Eastern, the website Downdetector said there were more than 100,000 reported outages.

More than a hundred thousand users are reporting issues with Microsoft systems as the company says it is working to address the problems being seen around the world.

More to come.

Sources

This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Company claims are reported as claims. Cover image is AI-generated.