Thank you all for calling today about the Microsoft outage. We appreciate the trust you place in us to answer your questions about the outage.
What Happened?
On Thursday, November 12, 2026, Microsoft experienced a widespread outage affecting multiple Microsoft 365 services including Outlook, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online, Copilot, Azure, OneDrive, and the Microsoft Store. The incident began at approximately 1:26 PM ET and impacted users worldwide.
- Services affected: Outlook, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft Defender XDR, Azure, OneDrive, and the Microsoft Store.
- Root cause: Microsoft determined the disruption was caused by servers unexpectedly becoming unavailable, straining the remaining infrastructure — not an increase in traffic.
- Geographic scope: While initially reported in the Americas, Microsoft confirmed users in any region could be affected.
What Microsoft Is Doing About It
Microsoft has taken several steps to restore services and reduce load on affected systems:
- Paused all deployments to prevent further disruption
- Redistributed connection traffic across worldwide infrastructure
- Moved additional traffic away from affected systems
- Restarting affected servers to restore capacity
What You Can Do Right Now
If you are experiencing issues with Microsoft 365 services, here are some steps to help you get through the outage:
- Check the Microsoft 365 Service Status page for real-time updates on affected services
- Use the Outlook mobile app or webmail at outlook.com as an alternative if your desktop client is down
- For urgent team communications, consider using a phone call or SMS while Teams is unavailable
- Avoid repeatedly trying to log in — this can add load to already strained servers
- Call us at 720-641-0708 if you need help navigating the outage or setting up temporary workarounds
Outages like this are a good reminder of how dependent businesses have become on cloud services. If you rely heavily on Microsoft 365 for your day-to-day operations, it may be worth discussing a backup communication plan with our team. We're here to help — give us a call at 720-641-0708.
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Reach out to our team for help navigating outages, setting up backups, or any other IT needs.