Microsoft Outlook down for millions as users left unable to access emails in ‘global outage’
MICROSOFT Outlook and a slew of other services came to a grinding halt - leaving users around the globe unable to access their emails.
The company was facing a widespread outage that has affected not just Outlook, but also Microsoft 365, Teams, Exchange, and the Microsoft Store.
Social media has exploded with complaints as users report being locked out of their accounts.
One person wrote on social media: "So I’m guessing Microsoft Outlook is having issues, everyone around me has just been logged out of their emails."
According to service status website Down Detector, users began reporting problems with the tech giant’s services at around 8.40pm on Saturday.
Almost 9,000 reports had been received by 9.15pm, with the issue particularly affecting users in London and Manchester, according to the website.
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But Microsoft has said “a majority” of its Outlook services that users were unable to access are now recovering.
The company said in a post on X: “Our telemetry indicates that a majority of impacted services are recovering following our change.
“We’ll keep monitoring until impact has been resolved for all services.”
It said it had “identified a potential cause of impact” at about 10pm.
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The global outage has echoes of last year’s massive disruption when cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike suffered a major outage.
It also crippled access to essential services, sparking outrage from users.
That incident raised questions about cloud service vulnerabilities and how tech giants can handle multiple simultaneous outages.
With Microsoft facing its own service collapse, the tech world is bracing for answers as users are left in limbo.
Microsoft is far from the only tech giant to experience problems this week.
On Friday, Meta faced its own major outage, leaving millions of users unable to access WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram.
The issues began around 3:10pm UK time and spread across the UK and US, causing widespread disruption.
According to Down Detector, more than 60,000 users reported problems with WhatsApp alone.
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Users struggled to send and receive messages on WhatsApp, while Facebook app users across the UK also reported issues.
Meta managed to resolve the problem around 3.50pm.
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