Microsoft outage ends: Services across Outlook, Teams, Copilot and other apps fully restored after over 24 hours

Microsoft has fully restored its services following a global outage that began on Thursday and disrupted businesses, government agencies and organisations across several countries for more than 24 hours.

The disruption affected several Microsoft products, including Outlook, Teams, Copilot and other Microsoft 365 applications. Services began returning to normal before the company confirmed full recovery on Saturday (November 14).

In a post on X, Microsoft said it had resolved the underlying technical issue and restored services for all affected customers and regions.

“We have completed our efforts to address the underlying issue of the incident and restored service to the remaining impacted customers and regions,” the company said.

Microsoft apologises, rules out cyberattack

Microsoft apologised to customers and business partners for the disruption, which affected workplace communication, public services and business operations worldwide.

“We are deeply sorry for the disruption this incident has caused our customers and partners,” the company said in a post on X.

Microsoft attributed the outage to server-related issues and said it had found no evidence of malicious activity. It also ruled out cyber or AI-related activity as the cause of the disruption.

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Airlines, government agencies among those affected

The outage affected organisations across several sectors, including aviation, healthcare, finance, education and government services.

In India, airlines IndiGo and Akasa Air said their email support services had been disrupted, warning that they might not receive customer emails.

Immigration New Zealand also suspended the processing of all visa applications because of the disruption.

In Japan, Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Ryosei Akazawa warned of a "significant impact", pointing out that Microsoft products were used by a vast number of people.

The disruption also affected financial firms in London, delayed corporate earnings announcements and created communication difficulties for schools and businesses.

Meanwhile, the Australian Computer Society (ACS) called for a national review of risks linked to dependence on overseas technology services. Its CEO, Prins Ralston, said small businesses might not have alternative systems to rely on when Outlook stops working.

Microsoft initially said it was investigating reports of service disruptions in the Americas. It later confirmed that the issue could affect Microsoft 365 connectivity for users across all regions.

The outage highlighted how heavily businesses and government agencies depend on Microsoft's cloud-based services for everyday operations.

Microsoft 365 is the company's subscription-based cloud service, which includes widely used workplace applications such as Outlook and Teams.