Last updated: 16:00, Friday 13 November 2026
Latest update (16:00): issue largely resolved
The outage is now largely resolved. Email, Outlook and Teams are working normally again for the vast majority of our customers, and email held up during the outage has been coming through.
Microsoft hasn’t formally closed the incident yet and is still carrying out recovery work in the background, so a few people may see the odd delay or hiccup for a little while longer.
If something still isn’t working properly for you, close and reopen Outlook or Teams first. If that doesn’t sort it, give us a call on 01243 767399 and we’ll take a look.
Earlier update (13:20): email returning to normal in the UK
We’re now seeing email services returning to normal for our customers in the UK. Microsoft says it’s seeing encouraging recovery progress, with service availability and email delivery improving across a growing part of its infrastructure.
Some people may still have the odd intermittent problem while Microsoft finishes the recovery, and email that was held up during the outage may take a little while longer to arrive as the backlog clears. If Outlook still isn’t working for you, close it and open it again before trying anything else.
Earlier update (12:30)
Microsoft says recovery is under way. Services are being restored in stages, and mailbox access and delayed email are improving, but it warns that some intermittent problems may continue and capacity isn’t fully back to normal yet. There’s still no time for full recovery.
Microsoft has also extended its email timeout to 48 hours. Email that got stuck during the outage should be held and delivered as service recovers, rather than bouncing back to the sender.
If Outlook or Teams starts working for you again, it may still be slow or drop out from time to time while Microsoft finishes the recovery.
What happened
Microsoft has been dealing with a widespread outage affecting Microsoft 365. It started on Thursday evening (UK time) and carried on through Friday morning.
What’s affected
- Outlook / Exchange Online email (desktop, web and mobile)
- Microsoft Teams
- SharePoint and OneDrive
- Microsoft 365 Copilot
- Some third-party apps that connect to Microsoft 365, such as calendar integrations
What’s causing it
Microsoft says some of its own servers became unavailable, which put too much load on the rest, and servers it brought back kept struggling once traffic returned. Microsoft has said there’s no sign this was a cyberattack. This isn’t a problem with your computer, your network or your Microsoft 365 setup.
What you should do
- Please don’t reset passwords, delete Outlook profiles or reinstall Office. None of these will help, and they can cause extra problems while service comes back. If something still isn’t right once Microsoft confirms full recovery, give us a call.
- Give delayed email time to arrive. With the 48-hour timeout, most messages sent to you during the outage should come through as the backlog clears.
- If something is urgent, phoning us is the quickest way to reach us: 01243 767399.
- Microsoft 365 admins can follow incidents EX1550543 and MO1550821 under Health > Service health in the admin centre, or at status.cloud.microsoft if the admin centre won’t load.
What we’re doing
We’re keeping an eye on Microsoft’s updates and will check our managed customers’ services once Microsoft confirms things are back. We’ll keep this page updated.
