A major Microsoft outage disrupted businesses, government agencies and public services worldwide on Friday, leaving users unable to access Outlook, Teams and other workplace applications as the technology company struggled to restore systems more than 12 hours after the disruption began.
The outage started Thursday, affecting Microsoft 365 services across several regions. Users reported problems sending and receiving emails, accessing calendars and joining online meetings, while disruptions also affected Copilot and other cloud-based tools.
Outage-monitoring website Downdetector recorded nearly 130,000 reports of Outlook problems at the peak, although the figure represents user complaints rather than the total number of people affected.
The disruption spread through organisations that depend on Microsoft’s infrastructure for everyday operations.
In Britain, National Health Service facilities reported email and IT difficulties, with some medical practices asking patients to contact them by telephone. Police forces and schools also experienced interruptions.
Australian government departments and schools reported problems, while Japanese logistics company Sagawa Express suspended some same-day delivery bookings.
Businesses also faced delays. Swiss luxury goods group Richemont briefly postponed the release of its half-year financial results, while American truck manufacturer Workhorse delayed quarterly reporting.
Microsoft said unexpectedly unavailable servers had increased pressure on its remaining infrastructure. Initial recovery measures, including rerouting traffic and restoring affected servers, did not work as expected.
The company subsequently reported early signs of stabilisation but warned that available capacity remained below normal and recovery could be uneven.
Microsoft executive Charles Lamanna said there was no indication the outage resulted from malicious activity or a cyberattack.
The disruption recalled the July 2024 global IT crisis linked to a faulty CrowdStrike software update, although Microsoft has not established the same cause for Friday’s incident.
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