November 13, 2026 | Updated as of Friday afternoon, Philippine time
Microsoft has begun restoring affected services following a widespread outage that disrupted Outlook, Teams, Copilot, and other Microsoft 365 applications, leaving thousands of users worldwide struggling to access essential workplace tools.
The disruption began Thursday, November 12, in the United States, with outage tracker Downdetector recording nearly 130,000 reports of Outlook-related problems shortly after 1 p.m. Eastern Time. Users reported difficulties sending and receiving emails, accessing inboxes, and connecting to other Microsoft services.
The outage extended across multiple regions, including Asia, affecting businesses, government offices, and individuals who rely on Microsoft's platforms for daily communication and productivity.
What Caused the Outage?
Microsoft attributed the disruption to infrastructure issues involving servers that unexpectedly became unavailable during automated health checks. The resulting strain contributed to widespread connectivity problems.
The company also clarified that there was no indication of a cyberattack.
Latest Update: Recovery Underway
As of November 13, Microsoft had begun returning affected servers to service and redirecting traffic to alternative routes to improve connectivity.
Although some services showed signs of recovery and outage reports had declined, restoration remained gradual, with certain users still experiencing intermittent access issues.
The incident highlights how heavily businesses and individuals depend on cloud-based platforms—and how a single technical disruption can affect workplace operations worldwide.
Sources: Associated Press, Reuters, Microsoft 365 service updates.