Microsoft 365 service outage
Friday 13 November 2026
Microsoft is working to resolve a widespread Microsoft 365 outage that began at around 4:15pm UK time on Thursday 12 November. Microsoft reported improved stability on some servers this morning. There’s no confirmed time for full recovery.
What’s affected
Outlook and email – Some users may be unable to open their mailbox. Sending and receiving email may also be delayed.
Teams – Teams calendars, meeting invites and scheduling may be unreliable. Chat, calls within Teams and joining meetings are largely working. Microsoft hasn’t reported a widespread issue with Teams Phone calls to or from external numbers.
Word, Excel and other Microsoft 365 apps – Some documents may be missing from the Recent files list. You can try opening them directly from SharePoint.
Copilot, Planner and To Do – Some features may be slow or unavailable.
Links in Outlook and Teams – Some links may fail to open.
What you can do
Call or text for anything urgent.
If your business uses Teams Phone, test an incoming call to your main number from a mobile and an outgoing call to an external number. If either fails, use a mobile for urgent calls and let us know.
If a Teams meeting invite is missing, ask the organiser to share the join link in Teams chat. If you already have the link, try joining directly.
If Outlook won’t connect, give it some time. Leave the Outlook app open so it can reconnect automatically. If you’re using webmail, try again later. Repeatedly refreshing the page or forcing a sync is unlikely to help.
Check your Outbox and Sent Items before resending an email that appears stuck.
Keep working on files already downloaded to your device. Changes can sync once the connection returns.
Call us if you need urgent IT support. We’ll update this page as we hear more from Microsoft.
Contingency plans
Switching to backup systems - If Microsoft do not restore service within an acceptable timeframe (e.g. close of business on Friday 13th November), we can set up temporary email services via our hosting platform, which will allow you to send and receive email. This will take some time to complete for each client and may result in unexpected issues, so we recommend this only as a last resort. Instead, we recommend waiting for the issue to be resolved.
