Microsoft 365 services restored after 18-hour global outage, but Outlook issues persist

Microsoft services are gradually returning online after a global outage disrupted access to Outlook, Teams and other Microsoft 365 applications for nearly 18 hours, affecting millions of users across 74 countries. Although users started to regain access to their accounts on Friday evening, the company has warned that some may continue to face intermittent access problems and delays in receiving emails. Microsoft 365 products are used by more than 430 million people worldwide. The disruption began on Thursday, with users reporting difficulties accessing Microsoft’s services. The company said it had made “encouraging progress” in restoring services more than 20 hours after the problems started, adding that email queues were approaching normal levels. Microsoft said the outage was not caused by a cybersecurity breach and that it was not aware of any malicious activity behind the incident. The disruption has been attributed to elevated load on Microsoft’s infrastructure, although the precise trigger has not yet been established.