Outlook and Teams Down? What the Microsoft 365 Outage Means for Your Business
If you opened your laptop this morning and Outlook would not load, Teams kept spinning, or a shared file refused to open, it was not just you. Microsoft 365 had a major global outage overnight, and at the time of writing it still has not fully recovered.
Here is what happened, how to check whether a problem is on your end or Microsoft's, and what you can do today to keep working.
What happened
Microsoft's status team first posted on X at 1:54 AM AWST on Friday 13 November about people having trouble getting into Exchange Online mailboxes in the Americas. Within 15 minutes it confirmed that users in any region could be affected. In its admin centre advisory, MO1550821, Microsoft gives the start of the wider incident as 1:26 PM US Eastern time on Thursday, which is 2:26 AM AWST, as BleepingComputer reported.
The services hit include Outlook and Exchange Online email, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, Microsoft 365 Copilot and Defender XDR. Forbes Australia says Planner, To Do, Intune, Power BI and Universal Print have also had problems for some users.
The outage tracking site Downdetector logged close to 130,000 reports worldwide at the peak, according to The Guardian. Forbes Australia counted more than 2,500 Outlook reports from Australia by 4:30 AM AWST, before most people here had even started work. Over east, Service NSW closed its regional centres and the Longreach School of the Air cancelled online lessons, it reported.
Why it happened, in plain words
Microsoft runs Outlook and Teams on huge pools of servers. Overnight, a number of those servers suddenly stopped working, and the remaining ones were left carrying the extra load. Microsoft was clear that this was not caused by a rush of people logging on. The servers were failing automated health checks, the routine tests that decide whether a server is fit to take traffic, and were being pulled out of service.
Around 5:00 AM AWST, Microsoft said it had found another way to run those health checks that let some servers come back, and started applying that more widely. It also said it was looking at whether a small number of recent configuration changes were involved.
An hour later, it admitted the fixes so far had not worked as hoped, and that a core process on the affected servers was getting overwhelmed:
Microsoft 365 Status@MSFT365StatusView on XWe’re opening all available pathways to restore service, as our actions taken thus far have not provided the anticipated relief. We found a core process on affected servers is becoming overwhelmed, causing capacity loss. To validate a potential recovery, we're isolating a portion of infrastructure, restarting affected components, and reintroducing traffic to confirm the services remain stable before applying the change more broadly. More info under EX1550543 and MO1550821 in the Microsoft 365 admin center, as well as status.cloud.microsoft if the admin center is not available to you.
View on XBy 7:04 AM AWST it was seeing limited recovery in some regions. Then it hit a snag. At 8:06 AM AWST, Microsoft said servers it had brought back could stop responding again as soon as they took traffic, and it started limiting some types of traffic to the affected servers while it worked out why.
In a status page update at 9:06 AM AWST, Microsoft said the process that becomes overwhelmed is the one responsible for setting up secure connections. It has started rolling back a recent network configuration change that lines up with when the problems began, and is watching to see whether that helps. It also noted that core Teams chat and online meetings were largely still working, and that files stored directly in SharePoint could still be opened.
Microsoft has said there is "no indication this is a cyber attack", Forbes Australia reported. It has not published a full root cause yet, and says the recovery will be gradual as apps reconnect.
Where it stands now: the outage has dragged on through the day. When we checked Microsoft's service status page at 5:21 PM AWST, Microsoft 365 was still listed as "Service degradation". In its update at 5:14 PM AWST, Microsoft said it was seeing early signs of stabilisation, but capacity was not yet back to normal and service health was still up and down as traffic was carefully let back in. It has extended the email timeout window to 48 hours so delayed messages are held rather than lost, says it is not aware of any malicious activity behind the incident, and has promised a full post-incident report with the root cause once recovery is complete. Its latest post on X, at 3:44 PM AWST, reported "positive results" from its traffic changes, which it is now rolling out across more regions. The next update is due by 6:00 PM AWST.
Is it you, or is it Microsoft?
When email stops working, the natural reaction is to assume something is wrong with your computer. Before you change anything, spend two minutes checking:
- Microsoft's public status page. status.cloud.microsoft shows whether there is a known problem with Microsoft 365. It works even if you cannot sign in to anything.
- Microsoft 365 Status on X. The @MSFT365Status account posts regular updates during big incidents, with the incident numbers to look up.
- Service health in the admin centre. If you look after your business's Microsoft 365, sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin centre and go to Health, then Service health. It lists active incidents with their ID numbers, like MO1550821 for this one, and gives more detail than the public page.
If Microsoft says there is a problem, there is nothing to fix on your side. If everything is green and only you are affected, that is when it is worth looking at your own device or internet connection, or calling us.
What still works while it is down
An outage like this does not mean everything stops. A few things can keep you going:
- Desktop Outlook keeps a copy of your mail. If you use the Outlook app on your PC or Mac with Cached Exchange Mode turned on, which is the normal setting, you can still read emails and look up contacts that were already downloaded. New mail just won't arrive, and anything you send will wait in the Outbox until the service comes back.
- OneDrive files you have synced are still on your computer. Files marked "Always keep on this device" open as normal. Files that only show a cloud icon need a connection, so they might not open. Microsoft's guide to Files On-Demand explains the difference.
- Your phone still works. Calls and texts don't run through Microsoft 365. If a customer is waiting on an email, a quick call or SMS saying "our email is down, here's what's happening" goes a long way.
There are also a few things not to do. Don't keep resetting your password, don't reinstall Office, and don't start pulling apart your computer's settings. None of it will help when the fault is at Microsoft's end, and you could end up with a second problem once the service is back. Also be wary of anyone who calls or emails offering to "fix" the outage for you. ING warned its customers about exactly that today.
While you're at it, update Outlook
There is a separate Outlook issue worth knowing about this week, and it has nothing to do with the outage. On 10 November (US time), Microsoft released a fix for an Outlook spoofing flaw, CVE-2026-124194, which it rates 6.5 out of 10 and says is already being exploited. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency added it to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalogue the same day. Microsoft 365 apps normally update themselves, but you can check by opening Outlook or Word and going to File, then Office Account (or Account), then Update Options, then Update Now.
What to set up before the next one
Big cloud outages are not common, but they do happen. Forbes Australia notes Microsoft 365 also had disruptions in January and August this year. A few small changes make the next one far less painful:
Have a backup way to reach people. Decide now how your team will talk if Teams and email go down, whether that is a group text, a WhatsApp group or simply phone calls. Keep a printed or offline list of key customer and supplier phone numbers. RMIT's Mark Gregory told The Guardian that businesses relying on cloud services should have an alternative ready, even something as simple as a second email account.
Keep offline copies of the files you can't work without. Price lists, current quotes, job sheets and templates are good candidates for "Always keep on this device" in OneDrive, so they open even with no connection.
Think about a proper Microsoft 365 backup. Microsoft keeps its services running, but it is up to you to protect your own data. A backup of your email, OneDrive and SharePoint, either through Microsoft 365 Backup or a third-party service, means you can get back a deleted mailbox or an overwritten folder. It won't stop an outage like this one, but it covers the other things that go wrong far more often.
Know who looks after your Microsoft 365. Someone in the business should know how to get into the admin centre, check Service health and see what Microsoft is saying. If nobody does, that is worth fixing.
If you are weighing up your options more broadly, our comparison of Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace covers what each suite does well. We also wrote about what a hosting outage taught us earlier this year, and plenty of the same lessons apply.
We can help
Today's outage was Microsoft's problem to fix, and nobody could have prevented it from their desk. What you can control is how much it slows you down. If you want Outlook and OneDrive set up so you still have your mail and key files offline, a backup of your Microsoft 365 data, or just a simple plan for the next time things go quiet, get in touch with Tech Hero. We work with small businesses across Perth and WA and are happy to look at your setup with you.
