Millions of people around the world struggled to access Microsoft services after a major global outage hit Outlook, Teams, OneDrive and Copilot in Microsoft 365 applications late on November 12 and into November 13.
Businesses, government organisations, educational institutions and other critical services in several countries were affected by the disruption (which started late on November 12 and continued into November 13). People reported trouble accessing emails, scheduling meetings, sharing files and using cloud-based workplace applications.
Microsoft admitted to the disruption but said that “elevated infrastructure load across multiple regions” was causing connectivity problems. But initial recovery measures didn’t work, so it had to find other ways to restore services. The outage lasted more than 10 hours. Concerns have been raised about how much more organisations depend on Microsoft’s cloud-based ecosystem and financial and productivity losses from large technology disruptions.
As reported by outage-tracking site Downdetector, the first complaints about Microsoft service disruptions started coming in at around 11.02 pm IST on November 12, and complaints increased rapidly over the next hour as disruptions were reported across 74 countries/territories.
Users in the Americas, Europe, Asia and parts of Africa could not access different Microsoft products. Microsoft initially said a portion of its infrastructure was experiencing unusually high demand in multiple regions which may be causing connectivity errors but paused deployments, redirected additional traffic away from affected infrastructure and restarted servers to try and get things back to normal but disruption continued even after these steps so users weren’t sure when services would come back online.
The outage impacted many of Microsoft’s business and productivity applications. Exchange Online and Outlook users had problems accessing email; Microsoft Teams users could not connect to meetings or use scheduling features; SharePoint Online and OneDrive were also affected (access to cloud-stored files and collaborative documents was lost); other products reportedly affected by the outage included Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft Defender XDR, Microsoft Planner, Microsoft To Do, Microsoft Intune and Microsoft Defender for Office 365.
Several Microsoft Purview services (authorisation, automatic labelling, data loss prevention, communication compliance, data classification) were also affected. The widespread nature of the disruption meant organisations that depended on multiple Microsoft apps at once had problems across several workplace functions rather than just an email problem.
Microsoft blamed it on increased load on infrastructure and server availability problems. It said that some servers unexpectedly failed automated checks but didn’t give a technical explanation of why (and for which servers). As speculation about a cyberattack grew, Microsoft executive Charles Lamanna said malicious activity or hacking wasn’t the cause and apologised to customers for the disruption but was working on fixing it.
Updates later showed Microsoft changes introduced to increase service availability weren’t having the desired effect, so the company was finding alternative workstreams to increase capacity and reduce impact on affected customers but didn’t provide a definite timeline for when services would be fully restored, leaving businesses and individual users waiting for more information.
It was particularly felt in India, where thousands of users complained they were unable to access Microsoft applications (808 complaints reported in the early hours of Monday morning), core Microsoft 365 applications received 230 reports, and Microsoft Teams got 48 complaints.
The Microsoft Store and Copilot also had disruptions (30 and 21 complaints respectively). Businesses that rely on Microsoft’s email and collaboration systems for everyday operations were affected too. IndiGo Airlines advised passengers its email support service wasn’t working normally because of global disruption at Microsoft but might not be able to receive customer emails either (its advisory didn’t say whether flight operations, bookings or airport check-in services were disrupted). SpiceJet cancelled three flights from Delhi to Pune, Leh and Mumbai; two others from Delhi to Darbhanga and Delhi to Mumbai were reportedly delayed due to the disruption.
The effects were also seen in Canada, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Taiwan. In Canada, more than 13,000 outages were reported; some Toronto hospitals, the City of Toronto and educational institutions were affected. Sunnybrook Hospital reportedly told patients with urgent appointments to call the main telephone line because staff members couldn’t send or receive emails; some healthcare institutions reported administrative problems but said patient care was not disrupted.
In Australia, government departments, a spy agency and federal police were among organisations affected. Service NSW advised customers to delay visits to service centres where possible and complete transactions online. Authorities in Northern Territory reported disruption too, and the Western Australia Government said administrative email and staff collaboration tools used by schools were affected.
Japan’s government confirmed its IT platform had problems and would continue to monitor Microsoft’s restoration efforts. New Zealand Foreign Ministry said it could no longer receive emails (at embassies, consulates and representative offices worldwide). Businesses in Taiwan said Outlook emails and Teams calendar functions were broken.
Some technology services connected to Microsoft’s ecosystem also were affected by the outage. OpenAI and Anthropic had problems with tools that connect their AI services to Microsoft 365, according to a cybersecurity expert quoted by BBC News: “This shows how much the internet and modern workplaces rely on Microsoft,” Troy Hunt said.
“Email disruptions can affect more than workplace communication; appointments could be confirmed incorrectly; online purchases might not go through; account verification may not happen; access to essential services may be disrupted.” He added that businesses need contingency plans and alternative communication systems too.
Microsoft’s commercial importance is reflected in its January 2026 announcement that paid commercial Microsoft 365 subscriptions had reached 450 million seats. Microsoft Teams reported 320 million monthly active users in 2023 but hadn’t updated that number in the information cited in the report. Organisations across industries depend on these services, so even a short outage can pose huge operational challenges.
As of the most recent update described in the report, Microsoft had not given a confirmed time for all services to be restored. The company said recovery efforts were not working as expected and that it was looking at other ways to increase capacity in its infrastructure.
Users should follow official Microsoft service updates instead of unverified information circulating online. This incident has once again shown what can go wrong when email, communication, cloud storage and business operations are heavily dependent on a single technology ecosystem.
Cloud platforms may be convenient and efficient, but organisations need backup communication channels, alternative file-access arrangements, and business continuity plans so disruption is minimised during unexpected outages. Until Microsoft finishes recovery, businesses and users in affected regions may still have intermittent problems with some of its services.
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