Microsoft Outlook outage enters second day with recovery ongoing
Microsoft's Outlook email service remains disrupted for millions of users worldwide on Friday, affecting businesses and governments, though the company reports encouraging recovery progress in Europe and Japan.
Key points
- The global Outlook outage began shortly before 1 p.m. ET on Thursday, November 12, 2026.
- Microsoft stated there is no sign of a cyberattack but has not identified a root cause.
- Service in Japan is more stable, while North America is improving with intermittent problems.
- Microsoft extended the timeout window for incoming email to 48 hours to protect delayed messages.
Outlook service disruption continues into second day
Microsoft's Outlook email service remained disrupted for millions of users worldwide on Friday, November 13, 2026, marking the second day of a global outage.
The outage began shortly before 1 p.m. ET on Thursday, November 12, 2026, and has left businesses, governments, banks, courts and schools in dozens of countries cut off from email, calendars and contacts.
Microsoft stated there is no sign of a cyberattack, but has not identified a root cause or provided a timeline for full restoration.
"We're seeing encouraging recovery progress in Europe," Microsoft said in a status update Friday morning. It added that service in Japan was more stable and that North America was improving, though some users were still having intermittent problems.
In an update shortly after 7 a.m. ET, Microsoft warned that users may still be unable to connect to Outlook on the web or desktop, or to many other Microsoft 365 services that rely on email.
To limit the damage, Microsoft extended the timeout window for incoming email to 48 hours. The extended 48‑hour email timeout window remains in place to help protect delayed messages as delivery…
Your questions, answered
Why is Microsoft Outlook down?
Microsoft has not identified a root cause for the outage but stated there is no sign of a cyberattack.
When will Microsoft Outlook be back up?
Microsoft has not provided a timeline for full restoration, though it reports encouraging recovery progress in Europe.
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