Microsoft suffers major global outage hitting Outlook, Teams, and Copilot

Microsoft suffered a severe global outage starting November 12, 2026, disrupting core Microsoft 365 services including Outlook, Teams, and Copilot across 74 countries. Originating in Exchange Online infrastructure, server failures and overwhelmed connection processes generated over 138,000 user reports at peak impact. The blackout forced global financial desks onto phone lines, hindered government operations in Japan, and delayed corporate disclosures before Microsoft's traffic throttling and server reboots gradually stabilized services.

Scope of affected services and third-party apps

• ▪Third-party AI providers OpenAI and Anthropic reported disruptions to their Microsoft 365 connectors and Claude for Outlook during the November 12, 2026 outage
• ▪Microsoft Corp. experienced a global outage that disrupted Outlook, Teams, Copilot, and other Microsoft 365 services for hours

Causes and technical drivers of the outage

• ▪Microsoft identified an overwhelmed authentication process and a recent network configuration change correlated with the start of the November 12, 2026 Microsoft 365 outage
• ▪Microsoft stated that it was not aware of any malicious activity causing the November 12, 2026 global outage

Outage metrics and Downdetector reports

• ▪Downdetector recorded nearly 130,000 reports of Outlook problems in the United States around 1:00 PM ET on November 12, 2026, with reports spanning 74 countries and territories
• ▪By 5:47 PM ET on November 12, 2026, Downdetector reports of Microsoft 365 problems had fallen to nearly 13,000 users, alongside 763 reports for Teams

Global business and government disruptions

• ▪The Microsoft outage that began November 12, 2026 forced financial trading desks in Australia, Singapore, Japan, and the United Kingdom to rely on phone calls, faxes, and WhatsApp chats to communicate and execute trades
• ▪Japan's Ministry of Finance reported being unable to receive emails during the November 12, 2026 Microsoft outage, while US bus manufacturer Workhorse Group postponed its earnings release to November 16

Microsoft's mitigation efforts and technical hurdles

• ▪Microsoft reported initial difficulties scaling virtual machines and rebooting servers due to synchronization issues and machines remaining stuck in abnormal states
• ▪Microsoft initiated server reboots, scaled up virtual machines, implemented protective traffic controls, and rerouted traffic to restore service stability during the outage that began November 12, 2026