Microsoft outage disrupts Outlook for US office workers

Microsoft's widespread outage on Thursday left users across the United States unable to access Outlook email, disrupting office work nationwide. The company reported investigating issues with Exchange Online mailboxes, with outage reports peaking at over 130,000 before declining to nearly 60,000 by 3:30 p.m. EST. The outage began shortly after noon and persisted through the workday, stemming from failed health checks on affected servers that later became unresponsive, prompting Microsoft to restart them. The company said it was "aggressively pursuing all pathways to reduce impact" on services. Some workers responded with humor on social media, with one X user joking about going home without Outlook and Teams. Microsoft did not specify a full resolution timeline as the disruption continued into the afternoon.