Outlook outage: keep working and top email alternatives

Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook, Teams, and Copilot, experienced a major outage on November 12, affecting millions of users worldwide, with the issue particularly widespread in America and also reported in Europe, Africa, and elsewhere. Microsoft attributed the disruption to higher-than-normal load on part of its infrastructure, which likely caused errors, and announced plans to redistribute traffic. While Teams appeared to be working by Friday, some users still reported difficulties. Users can check the status via Microsoft's X account @MSFT365Status or its status page, and administrators can view incidents in the Microsoft 365 admin center. For continued work, Cached Exchange Mode in the desktop Outlook version allows access to mailbox items during outages, though it doesn't support POP or IMAP accounts. The Work Offline button also enables reading and drafting messages from stored content. Alternatives like Slack or Google Chat can coordinate teams, and WeTransfer or Google Drive can share files. Switching email programs won't change hosting, but providers like Gmail or Proton Mail offer different account options.