Many MindedOne Microsoft fault, nearly a day of lost email across 70 countries
Microsoft has apologised publicly after a global outage hit products including Outlook and Teams. Problems began on Thursday, when Microsoft acknowledged at 17:54 GMT that users in the Americas could not reach Exchange Online mailboxes, then warned that Microsoft 365 might be affected worldwide. By Friday afternoon, 13 November 2026, nearly 24 hours later, services were broadly recovering. Microsoft gave no estimate for full recovery.
The reach was wide. More than 70 countries were affected, and over 430 million people use the products involved. Microsoft reported only partial recovery in some regions at 04:36 Friday. By 13:32 it described broader improvements in North America, sustained improvements across much of Europe and encouraging signs in Asia Pacific. It said it restored service gradually because of the scale of the problem and to keep things stable. Microsoft attributed the fault to a technical issue introduced during a network capacity upgrade, and said it was not linked to cyber attacks or AI agents.
The disruption reached public institutions: the Japanese government, the Philippines Supreme Court, the Australian spy agency, and trains, hospitals and courts in North America. In the UK, parts of the NHS, some schools and police forces were hit, though cyber minister Liz Lloyd said the impact on frontline services such as 999 calls was limited and transport was undisrupted. US House staff said it cost a full day of legislative work, and advisers at the COP31 summit in Antalya could not access Outlook.
This is a friction signal for connection. When governments, hospitals and courts route daily communication through a few providers, one fault can cut access for millions at once. Security experts quoted in the coverage said organisations need plans to work without such tools. Watch for Microsoft's post-incident report; until then, the full cause is unconfirmed beyond its own account.
Source: BBC World