Is Microsoft Outlook down? Yes. The service was experiencing a major outage on November 12, 2026, and Microsoft unleashed a stream of updates that outlined various fixes. However, the outage stretched on into the evening.
Down Detector, which monitors outage reports, was reporting problems with Outlook and other Microsoft services, like Teams, Microsoft Copilot, and more.
Microsoft confirmed the outage via a post on X, writing, “We’re investigating reports of users experiencing issues accessing Exchange Online mailboxes through multiple connection methods in the Americas. More details can be found in the Microsoft 365 admin center under EX1550543.”
Continued the page, “While we’re working to mitigate impact, we’ve confirmed the issue may affect Microsoft 365 service connectivity for users in any region, more information will be provided in the Microsoft 365 admin center under EX1550543.”
You can read all of Microsoft’s updates here. What is Outlook? “Microsoft Outlook is an email and calendar application offering web, PC, Mac and mobile access as part of Microsoft 365, providing messaging, scheduling, contact management and task organization services,” Down Detector reported. The outages were started to taper off, according to that site.
Microsoft Was ‘Aggressively Pursuing’ Solutions to the Massive Outage
Microsoft wrote that it was “aggressively pursuing all pathways to reduce impact. We’ve paused all deployments, we’re moving additional traffic off the affected infrastructure, and we’re restarting affected servers to return them to service.”
In the latest update around 8 p.m. Eastern time, Microsoft noted, “We’re seeing positive results with our efforts to restart affected infrastructure and recover server availability in an isolated manner. We’re actively monitoring the performance of these portions of infrastructure to verify stability, which we suspect will support improved availability as these actions are subsequently expanded more broadly.”
Many government agencies, universities and private companies use Outlook, Teams and other Microsoft services. “If you are trying to contact a New York City agency by email or access an online City service that relies on Microsoft systems, you may experience delays or temporary disruptions,” NYC Emergency Management wrote on social media. “These issues may affect the delivery of emails, responses from City agencies, and access to certain online services.”
Microsoft Revealed That Outlook Was Experiencing ‘Elevated Load’ Across ‘Multiple Regions’
Although the statement got a bit technical, Microsoft confirmed that its service was experiencing heavy load. “We’ve determined a portion of infrastructure is experiencing elevated load across multiple regions, which is likely contributing to the connectivity errors. We’re providing more information under EX1550543 and MO1550821 in the Microsoft 365 admin center, as well as status.cloud.microsoft.”
Added Microsoft in the stream of updates, “We’ve begun redistributing connection traffic across our broader worldwide infrastructure to help balance the load. More info under EX1550543 and MO1550821 in the Microsoft 365 admin center, as well as https://status.cloud.microsoft if the admin center is not available to you.”
Microsoft Outlook Down: Email, Teams Outage Stretches for Hours