Microsoft restores Outlook after 20-hour outage, but some users still face delays

Microsoft's Outlook email service is being restored after an outage lasting over 20 hours, though some users may still face access issues, the company said Friday. Microsoft reported that the backlog of pending emails has been significantly reduced and is nearing normal levels. The disruption, which began Thursday, affected Outlook, Teams, Microsoft 365, and Copilot, stemming from overloaded servers managing secure connections that stopped responding. Experts say the failure cascaded as remaining servers absorbed tasks while millions of devices attempted reconnection, requiring a gradual restoration to prevent new overloads. Microsoft has extended email delivery wait times to 48 hours to prevent message loss and denied a cyberattack as the cause. Tens of thousands of users across 74 countries reported issues, though Microsoft shares fell only 0.2%, suggesting investors expect no major financial impact.