Microsoft outage disrupts Outlook, Microsoft 365; AWS and Google also affected

Microsoft suffered a widespread outage on Thursday affecting thousands of users, primarily impacting Microsoft 365 services and Outlook, with Amazon Web Services and Google users also reporting issues on Downdetector.com. The outage began shortly before 1 p.m., and Microsoft acknowledged the problem, stating it was investigating issues with Exchange Online. By 4 p.m., the company validated an alternative service health check method, bringing some servers back online and preparing automated recovery systems. Microsoft initially attributed the connectivity problems to elevated load across multiple regions, later determining that a number of servers being unexpectedly unavailable strained the remaining infrastructure. The company said it was working to restore services as soon as possible.