Microsoft is dealing with a major Microsoft 365 outage that has left many businesses without email, Teams meetings and other cloud services. It started on Thursday evening (12 November) and by Friday morning had lasted more than 12 hours, with Microsoft's first attempts at a fix failing.
Here at Q6IT, we're keeping a close eye on it for our customers. Here's what's happening, and what you can do in the meantime.
What's affected?
The problem is centred on Exchange Online, the service behind Microsoft 365 email. According to Microsoft, services that rely on Exchange Online are affected, including:
- Outlook email: sending, receiving and accessing mailboxes
- Teams meetings
- Cloud PCs
- Copilot
- more than a dozen other Microsoft 365 services
Services that don't rely on Exchange Online are still working.
What caused it?
Microsoft says servers began failing their automated health checks and going offline. It has tried several fixes, including adding capacity and rerouting traffic. Some regions have partly recovered, but not for long, and Microsoft says it's still working to find the underlying cause.
Microsoft has also said it is not aware of any malicious activity causing the incident, so at this stage there's nothing to suggest a cyberattack.
What should you do?
- Don't change your settings. The problem is on Microsoft's side. Resetting passwords, removing accounts or reinstalling Outlook won't fix it and could cause extra problems.
- Check the official status. Microsoft posts updates on its service status page.
- Use another way to keep in touch. Phone customers and suppliers about anything urgent, and consider adding a note to your website or social media if customers can't reach you by email.
- Watch out for scams. Criminals often use big outages as cover, so be wary of emails or calls claiming to "fix" your Microsoft account or asking you to sign in again.
- Expect a backlog. When service comes back, emails may arrive late or in a rush, so check for anything important that might have been held up.
A reminder about business continuity
Outages like this are rare, but they do happen, even to the biggest providers. It's a good moment to ask:
- Does your team know what to do if email or Teams stops working?
- Do you have phone numbers for key customers and suppliers saved somewhere other than Outlook?
- Is your business data backed up independently of Microsoft 365?
Need a hand?
If your business is affected and you're not sure what to do, or you'd like help with a simple continuity plan or Microsoft 365 backups for next time, Q6IT is here to help.
This is a developing story. Details were correct as of Friday morning, 13 November 2026.
Source: The Register