Microsoft restores Outlook, Teams and other services after global outage lasting more than 24 hours
(Image courtesy: Wikimedia Commons.)
New Delhi: Microsoft has restored its services worldwide after a major outage disrupted Outlook, Teams, Copilot and other Microsoft 365 applications for more than 24 hours. The company confirmed on Saturday that affected systems had fully recovered and accumulated email messages had been processed, bringing an end to the prolonged disruption.
The company’s service health page displayed “All products are operational”, covering consumer and enterprise services. Microsoft had earlier confirmed restoration of its consumer services by 4.10pm GMT on Friday, while enterprise systems remained under observation until engineers verified their stability and cleared delayed emails.
Microsoft also apologized for the disruption, saying, “We are deeply sorry for the disruption this incident has caused our customers and partners.” It acknowledged the trust customers place in its services and promised a detailed investigation into the failure.
Users in more than 70 countries and territories reported problems, according to Downdetector, and the disruption reached businesses, government services and individual users.
What caused the global Microsoft outage?
Microsoft attributed the disruption to a technical issue introduced during an earlier network capacity upgrade, which became apparent after a later network change. The company ruled out cyber activity, artificial intelligence and AI agents as causes.
The failure left numerous servers unexpectedly unavailable, increasing pressure on the remaining infrastructure. Some restarted servers became unresponsive again when traffic returned, complicating initial recovery efforts.
Engineers adjusted network routing, restricted traffic, restarted affected systems and increased computing capacity. Services were gradually restored, with stability checked at each stage to prevent further failures.
How the disruption affected businesses worldwide
The outage caused inaccessible Outlook inboxes, delayed emails, sign-in failures and difficulties accessing calendars and files. Exchange Online, Microsoft Copilot and some SharePoint functions were affected, while core Teams messaging and meetings largely remained operational.
Downdetector recorded nearly 140,000 Outlook problem reports worldwide at about 6pm GMT on Thursday, with complaints from 74 countries and territories. These are user-submitted reports, not the total number of affected customers.
In the UK, NHS organizations used alternative systems and paper records to maintain essential services. Schools, police forces and other public institutions also experienced communication difficulties.
In the US, the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office in Colorado said email disruptions affected online bond payments and release procedures.
The US Federal Aviation Administration also imposed a nationwide ground stop on Friday after a communications failure, raising questions about a possible link to Microsoft’s outage. However, Microsoft said in a post on X, “We have no indication that the FAA’s nationwide ground stop is related to any Microsoft services.”
In India, IndiGo and Akasa Air reported email-support problems, while Air India said its flight operations were unaffected. Government communication systems in Japan and Singapore also faced disruptions.
OpenAI and Anthropic had difficulties with their Microsoft 365 connectors, as RNA Media reported on Friday. OpenAI confirmed on Saturday that it had resolved its connector errors, without indicating a general ChatGPT outage.
The Microsoft executive Charles Lamanna said the company was reviewing the incident and measures to prevent similar failures.
Although services have been restored, Microsoft has promised a comprehensive post-incident report explaining the technical failure and steps to prevent its recurrence.
