Microsoft services including Outlook, Teams, and Copilot suffered a worldwide outage on Thursday, disrupting access for tens of thousands of users across 74 countries and territories. The disruption, which Microsoft attributed to "elevated load" on its infrastructure, lasted for much of the US workday.
The outage tracker Downdetector reported that the disruption went global within an hour. A map posted by Downdetector on X showed the outage affected users across the Americas, and parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Microsoft initially stated it was investigating outage reports "in the Americas," but later confirmed the issue apparently affected "Microsoft 365 service connectivity for users in any region." Microsoft 365 is the company's cloud-based subscription service that includes popular applications such as Outlook and Teams.
The company wrote on X that it had determined a portion of infrastructure was experiencing elevated load across multiple regions, which it said was likely contributing to the connectivity errors. Microsoft added, "We're aggressively pursuing all pathways to reduce impact." To address the issue, the company stated it had "paused all deployments, we're moving additional traffic off the affected infrastructure, and we're restarting affected servers to return them to service."
In the United States, Downdetector reported that around 130,000 users reported issues with Outlook shortly after 1 pm Eastern Time (1800 GMT). Reports declined later in the day, with about 37,000 users reporting issues as of 6 pm Eastern Time (2300 GMT). Thousands of users also reported issues with Teams and Copilot, according to Downdetector.
As the outage continued for hours, Microsoft posted a series of updates on X detailing continued but unsuccessful efforts to restore full service. In an update shortly after 6 pm Eastern Time, Microsoft said it was "observing limited recovery" while seeking to route user traffic away from affected servers. The company added, "As capacity is restored, users may experience a gradual recovery as their clients reconnect."
