Overview
- Microsoft reported a major outage that began on Thursday and left Outlook, Teams and Copilot unable to send or receive messages for many users.
- Service reports spread to more than 70 countries and Downdetector showed a surge in user complaints, with Outlook reports peaking near 97,000.
- Microsoft says some servers became unexpectedly unavailable, that remaining capacity was strained, and that teams are rerouting traffic and restarting systems as recovery work continues.
- Companies, courts, schools and local governments shifted to phone, fax and paper to keep basic functions running while staff could not access cloud mail, documents or AI tools.
- Security officials in Japan say there is no evidence of a cyberattack, experts warn that vendor lock-in increases risk, and updates from Microsoft on X will be the key sign of how quickly services return to normal.