Outlook users experienced disruptions accessing their email starting late Wednesday, but Microsoft has confirmed the problem has been fixed. The issues affected people worldwide and lasted into Thursday, causing trouble with signing in and loading inboxes.
Microsoft 365 first acknowledged the problem Wednesday night and said it was working on a fix. However, the initial attempt to resolve the issue ran into some delays, which meant the outage stretched longer than expected. The worst of the disruptions hit just before noon Eastern Time Thursday, with over 2,700 users reporting problems to outage tracker Downdetector.
By the afternoon, the number of reports dropped significantly. Around 3:30 p.m. ET, Microsoft announced the fix had been fully rolled out across affected systems and was now working for everyone. The company’s service status page confirmed all systems were back online.
Microsoft has not shared details about what caused the outage. When asked, a spokesperson declined to provide more information.
The outage highlights how reliant many people are on email services like Outlook, especially as Microsoft 365 continues to be a key tool for personal and business communication around the world. While these hiccups can be frustrating, it’s reassuring that the company acted quickly to restore access.