Microsoft Outlook email system affected by outage, users around the world affected

The Outlook email service, developed by Microsoft, is currently affected by a major outage, which affects users around the world. On the Downdetector platform, which lists reports from Internet users experiencing connection problems, several hundred notifications were recorded shortly after 6:30 p.m., this Thursday, November 12. In the United States, more than 39,000 people said they could no longer access their email at 7 p.m.

Microsoft 365 confirmed the incident shortly before this time, in a series of messages published on the social network X (formerly Twitter). The American group first indicated “[investigating] reports of users experiencing problems accessing Exchange Online mailboxes via several connection methods in the Americas”. He then acknowledged that "this issue [could] impact connectivity to the Microsoft 365 service for users in all regions."

While working to “limit the impact” of the outage, Microsoft noted that “some infrastructure is experiencing high load in several regions, which is likely contributing to connectivity errors.” Shortly after, the company announced that it had “begun spreading connection traffic across [its] global infrastructure to better balance the load.” Earlier today, Microsoft resolved an incident affecting its Teams messaging, which had disrupted its users in North America.