Microsoft outage: Email queues near normal as services recover across 74 countries

Microsoft services continued to recover on Friday with email queues significantly reduced and approaching normal levels as the technology giant implemented additional measures to restore infrastructure following a global outage that disrupted services across at least 74 countries including IndiaMicrosoft said service availability was improving although some users could continue to experience intermittent access issues and delayed email delivery as recovery efforts progressedWersquore continuing to see improvements in service availability with email queues significantly reduced and approaching normal levels Microsoft 365 Status said in its latest post on XWersquore continuing to see improvements in service availability with email queues significantly reduced and approaching normal levels Some users may still experience intermittent access issues or delayed email delivery as recovery continues Wersquove implemented additional mitigation measures are restoring remaining affected infrastructure and are investigating residual service issues while closely monitoring service health and validating recovery across affected connection methods A more comprehensive update can be found at MO1550821 in the Microsoft 365 admin center as well as httpstcobVoAAh3D2G if the admin center is not available to youmdash Microsoft 365 Status MSFT365Status November 13 2026The company said it had implemented additional mitigation measures and was restoring the remaining affected infrastructure while investigating residual service issues It was also monitoring service health and validating recovery across affected connection methodsThe latest update follows an earlier communication in which Microsoft reported encouraging recovery progress with service availability and email delivery performance improving across a growing portion of the affected Microsoft 365 infrastructureThe company had also extended its email timeout window to 48 hours to help protect delayed messages while delivery caught up The extended window remains in place with Microsoft continuing to prioritise email queue and backlog reductionRecovery across regionsIn an earlier update posted on X Microsoft 365 Status detailed restoration efforts across different regions reporting improvements in North America Europe and Asia PacificWersquore seeing continued recovery progress across affected regions with broader improvements in North America sustained improvements across much of Europe and encouraging recovery signals in Asia Pacific Microsoft 365 Status saidDespite the progress the company cautioned that services had not fully stabilised for all usersSome users may still experience intermittent access issues or delayed email delivery as mitigation continues across remaining affected infrastructure the update addedOur focus remains on stabilising recovered infrastructure completing mitigation in remaining impacted areas and reducing delayed email queues and backlogs while we validate service consistency across connection methods Microsoft 365 Status saidThe company said a comprehensive update was available under incident number MO1550821 in the Microsoft 365 admin centre Users unable to access the admin centre could also track developments through its service status websiteGlobal outage disrupted Microsoft servicesThe disruption affected widely used Microsoft services including Outlook email Microsoft Teams and its AI assistant Copilot leaving millions of users facing difficulties accessing services for nearly 18 hoursThe outage disrupted businesses schools government agencies and airline operations across at least 74 countries including the United States Major Indian carriers also issued passenger advisories following the disruptionAccording to Microsoft 365 Status the outage was not caused by a cyberattack Instead overwhelmed servers responsible for establishing secure connections failed preventing them from processing user requestsThe outage also affected AI service connectors used by OpenAI and Anthropic news agency ANI reported citing ReutersCharles Lamanna Executive VicePresident of Copilot Agents and Platform at Microsoft said in a post on X that there was no indication this is the result of malicious or cyber activityMicrosofts status page also said it had no evidence of malicious activity associated with the incident The company said it would share a comprehensive postincident report detailing the root cause after mitigation was completeData from outagetracking platform Downdetector highlighted the scale of user complaints during peak hours Reports of Outlook outages peaked at 138058 around 1 pm ET before declining to 34490 by Thursday eveningComplaints related to Microsoft 365 fell to nearly 13000 by 547 pm ET while 763 users reported issues with Teams during that periodWith ANI inputs