Microsoft outage disrupts Outlook worldwide, no timeline for full fix

A Microsoft outage disrupted services including Outlook across the world on Friday, and the company has not said when full service will be restored.

According to CNN, the problems began around noon ET on Thursday. Healthcare services, schools and companies were among those affected.

What has the Microsoft outage disrupted?

According to CNN, the outage left workers unable to reach Outlook email, Teams meeting tools and other standard office software. Banks, governments, health services, railways and courts all reported disruption to Microsoft products, and AI companies said they were having problems too.

Microsoft has said the outage was not caused by a cybersecurity breach.

How is Microsoft recovering from the outage?

Microsoft said it was seeing “encouraging recovery progress” in Europe and that service was improving in North America. In a statement on X, it said email delivery was improving across a growing portion of the affected infrastructure. It warned that some users might still “experience intermittent issues”.

Some social media users said emails had begun arriving again, while others said they still could not get in.

How has the outage affected healthcare, schools and companies?

Healthcare services were disrupted, corporate earnings reports were delayed and schools struggled to communicate with staff and families. A leading UK trade union said the disruption was having a “serious impact” on the country’s health care service.

Downdetector, which tracks outage reports, recorded complaints from 74 countries and territories within about an hour. CNN reported that some employees scrambled to find workarounds, while others welcomed the break from work.