Users in dozens of countries are experiencing serious issues with Microsoft services due to a widespread technical glitch affecting Outlook, Teams, the Copilot AI platform, and other Microsoft 365 applications. According to Downdetector, reports of Outlook issues neared 140,000 at the peak of the outage, while within about an hour, malfunctions had been reported in 74 countries. The company attributes the problem to an overload of its infrastructure following an unexpected server outage and announced that recovery efforts are beginning to bear fruit.
Problems with Microsoft’s online services persisted for more than eight hours, causing widespread disruptions to applications used daily by businesses and individuals around the world.
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The outage affected users in, among other places, the United States, Japan, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and Australia, with the company working to fully restore the operation of its systems.
According to the Downdetector outage tracking platform, the first reports appeared on Thursday shortly after 6:15 p.m. Greek time, while by approximately 8:00 p.m. Greek time, reports of Outlook malfunctions had reached nearly 140,000 worldwide.
That number was more than 2,000 times higher than usual.
According to Downdetector’s most recent data, reports of problems had dropped to more than 28,000, suggesting a partial easing of the disruption, though service has not yet been fully restored.
Which Microsoft services are affected
? The malfunctions are occurring across a range of Microsoft 365 applications, with significant issues affecting the Exchange Online service, which includes Outlook email.
Users report being unable to log in or access application features, while Microsoft has confirmed that some customers may be unable to view specific files or information in their calendars.
Connectivity issues were also reported in Teams and Copilot, the company’s artificial intelligence platform.
However, according to Microsoft, messaging and online meeting features remained largely available despite the other disruptions.
What caused the outage and when is a resolution
expected? Microsoft announced that it detected increased load on its technical infrastructure in many geographic regions, which is likely responsible for the connectivity issues.
As the company clarified, the overload was not caused by an unusual spike in traffic, but by the fact that some servers unexpectedly went offline, resulting in the remaining servers having to handle a larger volume of traffic than they could manage.
The company subsequently determined that a critical subset of the affected servers was experiencing excessive load, exacerbating the outages.
In a recent update via the X platform, Microsoft reported that efforts to restart the affected systems are yielding positive results.
“We are seeing positive results,” the company announced, adding that technical teams are actively monitoring infrastructure performance.
He warned, however, that some services may stop responding again when traffic increases, as the investigation into the causes of the outage continues.
As of this update, no clear timeline for full restoration had been announced.
Humor and memes on social media about the “blackout”
The prolonged outage also sparked a wave of humorous posts on social media, with employees commenting on the difficulties they faced without access to their everyday apps.
Among the memes that circulated was a scene from the music video for the 2002 song “Dilemma” from 2002, featuring Nelly and Kelly Rowland, in which the singer is shown typing a message into a spreadsheet.
“Since Outlook isn’t working, it’s time to be like Kelly Rowland and start sending emails through Excel,” wrote an X user.
The post garnered 23,000 likes and nearly 3,000 shares.
The American real estate company Surmont commented on Instagram: “Days like today remind you that your whole job is just sending emails.”
Other users saw the situation as an opportunity for an unexpected break from work.
“If Outlook doesn’t come back online, are we legally entitled to take the rest of the week off?” one of them asked.
The Microsoft outage has officially brought back the oldest IT solution: Turn it off. Turn it on. If that fails, hit it harder
— Olki (@Olking07) November 12, 2026pic.twitter.com/bcDlUq0RDA
