Microsoft Restores Email Services After Two-Day Global Outage

Microsoft confirmed on Friday that its workplace software is returning to normal operation after a two-day global outage.

The technical failure began just before 1 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday, November 12, affecting Microsoft 365 services including Outlook, Teams, and the AI assistant Copilot. The company initially noted that its early efforts to fix the systems did not yield the expected results, leading to 22 status updates posted on X. By Friday morning, the situation had stabilized, with the firm reporting that email queues had dropped to near normal levels.

Microsoft stated that service availability and email delivery are improving across a growing portion of its infrastructure. The company identified specific progress in North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region. However, users in remaining affected areas may still experience intermittent access issues or delayed email delivery as the company continues its mitigation work. Microsoft has more than 450 million paid commercial subscriptions, though the exact number of affected users remains unclear. The company said there is no indication that malicious activity caused the outage.

The disruption caused tangible problems for institutions worldwide. In Britain, Judge Maurice Greene sent jurors home from a trial in Manchester due to delays. British police forces told the public to phone in urgent crime reports because online systems were down. The National Pharmacy Association warned that prescription delays were likely because the outage affected email systems for the state-run National Health Service. In Norway, the government said several ministries were affected without a clear timeline for resolution.

In Asia, Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said Microsoft compared the current issue to the 2024 CrowdStrike outage, which involved a faulty update. Burke spoke with Microsoft’s top executive in Australia about the disruption. In Hong Kong, Danny Lau, an aluminum firm owner, reported that his company could not receive updates from U.S. customers, potentially impacting production timelines. Some banks in the region also saw disrupted operations. In Japan, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Masanao Ozaki stated that government IT infrastructure was affected, and officials secured alternative communication tools such as telephones.

The outage also impacted private sector operations. U.S.-based industrial technology company Workhorse Group Inc. delayed a quarterly earnings call. Air India temporarily rerouted its email services to keep customer queries flowing, while its rival IndiGo reported disrupted email support. OpenAI and Anthropic reported problems connecting with Microsoft 365 tools.

Florian Druckenthaner, a spokesperson for Germany’s digitization ministry, said the federal government did not use Microsoft cloud services and therefore avoided major disruption. He noted that the incident demonstrates the need for building redundancies in IT infrastructure. In Greece, Minister of Digital Governance Dimitrios Papastergiou said ministries using Outlook and Teams were affected, prompting a review of technological alternatives for government services.