Microsoft’s Outlook email hit by new outage

In Brief Posted: 11:03 AM PST · November 12, 2026 Zack Whittaker Microsoft’s Outlook email hit by new outage Microsoft said its Outlook email service is currently experiencing an outage, preventing both business and consumer users from accessing their inboxes. The issue was initially flagged as affecting the U.S. and the Americas, and later expanded to affect “any region.” Microsoft hasn’t given a specific cause, but said that it was providing updates in its admin center , which wasn’t reachable at the time of publication. In a post on X for users who can’t access the admin center, Microsoft said some of its infrastructure was experiencing “elevated load,” and that it was “redistributing connection traffic across our broader worldwide infrastructure to help balance the load.” In its latest update, Microsoft attributed this incident to “a large number of servers being unexpectedly unavailable,” for reasons it did not explain. Microsoft said it continues to investigate the outage. Microsoft says its video conferencing tool Teams, file sharing platform SharePoint, and its AI tool Copilot are also unavailable. The company says its Defender XDR security system is also affected by the outage. Consumers are also unable to access their OneDrive storage, Office (for the web), and several other Microsoft services during the ongoing outage. TechCrunch will reach out to Microsoft for comment, as soon as our own email service has resumed. The company’s last major incident was in September , when a days-long outage hit Microsoft 365, its online productivity suite that includes Outlook. During that outage, Microsoft blamed a “core authentication configuration” issue that prevented users from accessing the service. Topics Apps , email , In Brief , Microsoft , Outlook 2027 San Francisco Get an Early Peek at the Next TechCrunch Disrupt Disrupt, Startup Battlefield, and more will return next year, and you can be at the front of the line. Sign up for our waitlist Register Now Newsletters See More Subscribe for the industry’s biggest tech news TechCrunch Daily News Every weekday and Sunday, you can get the best of TechCrunch’s coverage. TechCrunch Mobility TechCrunch Mobility is your destination for transportation news and insight. Startups Weekly Startups are the core of TechCrunch, so get our best coverage delivered weekly. StrictlyVC Provides movers and shakers with the info they need to start their day. No newsletters selected. Subscribe By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . Related AI Jensen Huang is out at Nvidia — who is Colette Kress, his interim replacement? Amanda Silberling 4 hours ago Security Cyberattack on Fireworks AI allowed hackers to access Notion customers’ chat transcripts Zack Whittaker 5 hours ago AI OpenAI’s quarterly revenue reportedly crosses $10B for the first time Ram Iyer 1 day ago Latest in Apps In Brief Microsoft’s Outlook email hit by new outage Zack Whittaker 45 minutes ago Apps Phota Labs uses AI to turn everyday photos into professional-looking shots Aisha Malik 3 hours ago AI Anthropic launches Claude Meetings to turn workplace discussions into plans and tasks Aisha Malik 2 days ago