Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

Microsoft Outage Shuts Down Outlook and Teams Worldwide

curiousNov 15, 2026·299 words·3 min read

On Thursday 12 November, emails stopped arriving for office workers around the world. Microsoft 365, which includes Outlook, Teams, Word and Excel, failed first in the Americas, and Microsoft soon warned the problem could be global. The website Downdetector received nearly 130,000 problem reports from 74 countries, while the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) said more than 70 countries were affected.

Microsoft said a technical mistake happened during a network upgrade. It was not a cyber-attack. In the UK, police asked people to phone them instead of reporting crimes online. One pharmacy could not get patient information from a hospital by email, so someone drove there to collect the papers. A pharmacy leader said it was "what we used to do 20 years ago". In the US, workers at the House of Representatives lost a whole day of work.

Microsoft said it was "deeply sorry". When its email worked again, one US police department joked that this was not the result it wanted. Some people online joked about a 1960 study that said "doomsday" would come on 13 November 2026. Experts said some workers may have enjoyed a day with no email. But they warned that we rely heavily on a few big tech companies.

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