Microsoft Outage Global Disruption Affects Millions, Company Restores Services

Microsoft has apologised after a massive global outage disrupted businesses, schools, government offices and millions of users, affecting access to Outlook email, Microsoft Teams and other essential services.

The company said services had largely recovered after a technical problem caused widespread connectivity issues. It clarified that the incident resulted from a network-related failure rather than a cybersecurity breach.

According to Microsoft, the problem originated during an earlier network capacity upgrade and emerged after a subsequent network change.

The company said it had addressed the underlying issue and was gradually restoring services to remaining customers and regions. It also reported a significant reduction in undelivered email queues, which were approaching normal levels.

The disruption began around midday on Thursday on the US East Coast before spreading internationally. Reports suggested that as many as 430 million users may have experienced problems at some point during the outage.

In the United States, employees at some companies left work early on Thursday after losing access to workplace communication systems. Businesses in Australia struggled to print invoices, while several schools could not conduct online classes on Friday.

The disruption lasted several hours, with widespread problems still reported as late as 10:30pm ET on Thursday.

In a statement posted on X around 1pm ET on Friday, Microsoft apologised to customers and business partners.

“We are deeply sorry for the disruption this incident has caused our customers and partners,” the company said, reporting broader recovery and improved stability across its services.

Microsoft said it was restoring access gradually to ensure systems remained stable as demand returned.

The outage prompted mixed reactions from users. Some office workers in the United States joked about starting their weekends early, while others switched to alternatives such as Slack, telephone calls and face-to-face meetings.

However, small businesses struggled to find alternative communication channels. Some local governments also advised residents to contact their offices by telephone instead of email.

The financial impact could be significant. Michigan-based Anderson Economic Group estimated that the outage could cause approximately $7 billion in lost productivity.

Patrick Anderson, the firm’s president, estimated that around 26 million users on Thursday and 51 million on Friday may have experienced operational disruptions that resulted in economic losses. He warned that the final financial impact could exceed the initial estimate.

Australia was among the countries significantly affected. The disruption interrupted live court feeds, while some schools sent text messages to parents asking them to report student absences by telephone until email services returned.

Australia’s national broadcaster, ABC, reported that some people missed job interviews because they could not access virtual meetings. The outage also reportedly disrupted supply chains at distribution centres responsible for supplying supermarkets.

Microsoft initially said connectivity problems were affecting users in the Americas. However, reports from other countries gradually revealed the global scale of the disruption.

Downdetector recorded a peak of approximately 130,000 reports involving Outlook outages. However, the actual number of affected users was believed to be considerably higher because many people do not report service disruptions.