Outlook outage: Microsoft says users report Teams, CoPilot, email issues

Email users in North America reported a spike in issues accessing Microsoft Outlook on Thursday afternoon, affecting access to one of the most widely used email services.

The service issue also affected some Microsoft 365 users, the company posted online around 1 p.m.

We've not identified any recent change correlated with the start of impact; however, our investigation indicates the failed health checks may originate from a specific component that's responsible for processing server health. We've taken steps to prevent additional servers from being impacted while we work to return the affected servers to service. More info under EX1550543 and MO1550821 in the Microsoft 365 admin center, as well as https://t.co/pYdahqxDv3 if the admin center is not available to you.

— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) November 12, 2026

"We're investigating reports of users experiencing issues accessing Exchange Online mailboxes through multiple connection methods in the Americas," an official company account posted on X. 

Downdetector, a website that publishes user reports on technology service issues, showed a surge of reports starting around noon and peaking around 1:19 p.m.

Thousands of users also reported on Downdetector issues accessing Microsoft 365, the company's cloud-based suite of apps, as well as individual applications, such as CoPilot and Teams. 

"We're aggressively pursuing all pathways to reduce impact," the Redmond, Washington-based company said at 2:12 p.m. in a post on X. "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."

The account, @MSFT365Status, directed users to its Microsoft 365 admin center, and advised checking status.cloud.microsoft for users who cannot access the admin center. 

Check back for updates on this developing story.