A service interruption at Microsoft disrupted access to several platforms on Thursday, 12 November, affecting Outlook, Teams, Copilot, and other Microsoft 365 tools. The outage was particularly widespread in the Americas, according to reports collected by the Downdetector website.
In the United States, more than 130,000 users reported difficulties with Outlook around 1:30 pm Eastern time. These reports primarily concerned the inability to access mailboxes, send or receive messages, and delays in email delivery. Microsoft 365 recorded more than 46,000 reports, while Teams saw approximately 3,000 users reporting access difficulties. Disruption was also reported for the artificial intelligence assistant Copilot.
Microsoft confirmed the company is working to identify the source of the problem. In updates posted on X, the company initially stated that users in the Americas were unable to access Exchange Online mailboxes through various connection methods. The company later identified a possible factor behind the outage, stating that part of its infrastructure was experiencing higher than normal load.
To limit the impact, Microsoft announced it intended to redistribute traffic across its infrastructure to rebalance the load and restore connectivity. While the company stated it had resolved issues affecting Teams in North America, some users continued to report connection difficulties.
Microsoft did not immediately provide further details on the specific cause of the fault or an overall estimate of the total users involved. Downdetector data, which tracks user reports, does not necessarily represent the actual number of people affected by the interruption.
