Microsoft outage hits Outlook, Teams and Copilot, disrupting thousands

A service interruption at Microsoft caused disruption for thousands of users on Thursday 12 November, with access problems mainly affecting Outlook, the group's email platform, but also Teams, Copilot and other Microsoft 365 tools. The outage, particularly widespread in the Americas, affected users in several regions, according to reports collected by the Downdetector website.

In the United States, around 1.30 pm Eastern time (7.30 pm in Italy), more than 120,000 users had reported difficulties with Outlook. The number rose to over 130,000 according to data reported by Downdetector. The reports mainly concerned the inability to access their mailbox, send or receive messages and delays in email delivery.

Problems were also recorded for Microsoft 365, with more than 46,000 reports, and for Teams, the communications platform used mainly in workplaces, with around 3,000 users reporting access difficulties. Disruption was also reported for Copilot, Microsoft's artificial intelligence based assistant.

Microsoft investigates: infrastructure overload

The company has confirmed that it is working to identify the source of the problem. In a series of updates posted on X, Microsoft initially said it had received reports from users who were unable to access Exchange Online mailboxes through various connection methods in the Americas.

In a subsequent communication, the group identified a possible factor behind the outage: part of its infrastructure was experiencing higher than normal load, probably responsible for the connection errors.

To limit the impact, Microsoft announced that it intended to redistribute traffic across its infrastructure, in order to rebalance the load and restore connectivity.

Issues for Teams too, first restoration in North America

The day had begun with reports of malfunctioning for Teams as well. Microsoft said it had resolved the issues affecting the service in North America, although some users were still complaining of connection difficulties.

The company did not immediately provide further details on the cause of the fault or an overall estimate of the users involved. The figures from Downdetector, which collects user reports, do not necessarily represent the actual number of people affected by the interruption.