Since early Friday morning, Australian time, many businesses haven’t been able to get into Outlook. Microsoft says the fault is in Exchange Online, the email service behind Outlook, and it’s also breaking the parts of Teams, SharePoint and other Microsoft 365 services that depend on email. Microsoft is working on a fix, and it hasn’t said when everything will be back.

This post covers what we know so far, what you can do while you wait, and where to check for updates. We’ll keep it updated, and once Microsoft explains what went wrong, we’ll add that here too.

What’s affected

Microsoft now says the problem centres on Exchange Online. Other Microsoft 365 services are affected where they need to talk to Exchange Online, and the parts that don’t need it still work. Microsoft’s status page lists these as affected:

• Exchange Online, the email service behind Outlook. Mailboxes may not open in Outlook on the web, Outlook on your computer or the mail app on your phone, and email may arrive late.

• Microsoft Teams, but only the parts that need email, like calendars and scheduling meetings. Chat and online meetings mostly still work.

• SharePoint Online, but only features that depend on Exchange Online. Files stored in SharePoint still open.

• Microsoft 365 Copilot. Copilot Chat may not load or answer, and Copilot may not be able to reach your email, calendar or files.

• The Microsoft 365 apps, where your recently used files may not show up

• Microsoft Planner and Microsoft To Do, which may not load or may fail to save changes

• Microsoft Defender for Office 365 and Defender XDR. Safe Links may not be able to check links before opening them in Outlook and Teams, and Defender portal pages may not load.

• Microsoft Intune, which many businesses use to manage their laptops and phones

• Microsoft Purview, including data loss prevention, auto labelling, data classification and communication compliance. The Purview portal may not load.

• Power BI, where exporting reports with sensitivity labels to PDF may fail

• Microsoft Fabric, where exporting reports with sensitivity labels to PDF or PowerPoint, or updating labelled items, may fail

• Microsoft Graph, where requests for mail, calendar and contacts may time out. That can break other apps that connect to your Microsoft 365 email or calendar, like CRM and booking systems.

• Universal Print, where print jobs and admin features may fail

• Windows 365, but only for businesses using Microsoft Purview Customer Key with their Cloud PCs. Their staff may not be able to connect.

• Microsoft 365 Education, including Assignments, Reading Progress and Speaker Progress

• The Microsoft 365 admin centre, where some pages may not load

• The Microsoft 365 Apps admin centre, including Cloud Update, Cloud Policy and Inventory

For most people it shows up as email that won’t load, or an error saying “something went wrong” and suggesting a refresh. Refreshing won’t fix it. The problem is on Microsoft’s servers, not your computer or your internet connection.

What Microsoft says caused it

Microsoft says a large number of its servers became unexpectedly unavailable, which put extra strain on the servers still running. It now says the trouble is a process on those servers “responsible for establishing secure connections”. That process “becomes overwhelmed, causing the servers to stop processing requests.” In plain terms, the servers get stuck setting up the secure connections your apps make to them, so nothing gets through.

Microsoft has paused all deployments and its first fixes didn’t give the relief it expected. It’s now working on several fixes at once. It’s preparing a configuration change to stop that process getting overwhelmed, and is testing it on a small group of servers before rolling it out to the rest and restarting them. It has started rolling back a recent change to its network, because the timing of that change lines up with when the problems began. Microsoft hasn’t said the change caused the outage; it’s watching to see whether undoing it helps. And it’s now limiting traffic in some locations so the servers there handle fewer connections. If they stay stable, it’ll let more traffic back in gradually.

Nothing Microsoft has said so far points to a cyber attack. Its updates point to its own servers and, possibly, a recent change to its own network. We’ll know more when Microsoft publishes its review of the incident.

Timeline so far

Times are AEDT on Friday 13 November 2026. They come from Microsoft’s status page and from Microsoft’s updates as reported by ABC News, iTnews and Forbes Australia.

• Early morning. People start reporting problems. By 4:30am, Downdetector had more than 120,000 reports about Outlook.

• 4:54am. Microsoft first acknowledges problems connecting to Exchange Online mailboxes, starting in the Americas. It later confirms users in any region can be affected.

• 7:30am. Downdetector shows more than 2,500 reports from Australia.

• Just after 8am. A configuration change brings some servers back, but services don’t recover. Microsoft says its fixes haven’t given the relief it expected, and starts testing a recovery approach on an isolated part of its infrastructure.

• About 9am. Microsoft says it has started returning servers to service and they’re stable so far. It reports limited recovery in some regions and starts managing traffic in one location to reduce load.

• Late morning. Microsoft revises its list of affected services and makes clear the problem centres on Exchange Online. It says a process that sets up secure connections on its servers is getting overwhelmed, starts rolling back a recent network change, and puts traffic limits in place in some locations.

• At the time of writing. Microsoft is testing its fix on a small group of servers before rolling it out more widely. Some services are coming back as apps reconnect, but there’s still no time for a full fix. Microsoft’s next update is due by 1pm.

What to do while you wait

Don’t try to fix it on your computer. Resetting passwords, reinstalling Office or removing and re-adding your email account won’t help, because the fault is with Microsoft. Removing the account can make things worse, because Outlook then has to download your whole mailbox again once the service is back.

Email you already have is probably still there. Outlook on a computer usually keeps a copy of recent email, so you can still read it. New email won’t arrive, though, and anything you send may sit in your Outbox until Microsoft recovers. When things are back, check your Outbox and Sent folder before resending anything, so clients don’t get the same email twice.

Email sent to you should arrive late, not vanish. Mail servers are built to retry. When a message can’t be delivered, the sending server normally keeps trying for a day or more before it gives up. If you’re waiting on something urgent, call the sender.

Files still open. Microsoft says files stored in SharePoint still open, and copies synced to your computer open too. Features that rely on email, like emailed sharing notifications, may not work until Exchange Online recovers.

Use Teams chat, or pick up the phone. Microsoft says Teams chat and online meetings mostly still work, so use them to keep in touch inside the business. Booking meetings through the Teams or Outlook calendar may fail, so try Meet now in Teams instead. For clients and suppliers waiting on email, call or text.

Links in email may not open. Defender’s Safe Links checks links before it opens them, and it may not be able to do that right now. Don’t get around it by copying links into your browser unless you’re sure who sent them.

Watch for scam emails and texts. Criminals use big outages as cover. Expect fake “Microsoft” messages asking you to sign in again, verify your account or download a fix. You don’t need to do any of that to recover from this outage. Don’t click links in those messages. Go to status.cloud.microsoft yourself instead.

Where to check for updates

• Microsoft’s status page. status.cloud.microsoft shows whether there’s an active incident and is open to everyone.

• Microsoft 365 Status on X. Microsoft posts regular updates at @MSFT365Status.

• Service health, for admins. If it loads, the Microsoft 365 admin centre has the most detail under Health, then Service health. The main incident is MO1550821, and Exchange Online updates are under EX1550543.

• Us. Elevated IT clients can call us on 1800 620 449. We can’t fix Microsoft’s servers, but we can help you find a way around the problem for the work that can’t wait.

What happens next

For incidents this big, Microsoft’s practice is to publish a preliminary post-incident review in the admin centre within 48 hours of the fix, then a final review within five business days. That review should explain the root cause and what Microsoft is changing so it doesn’t happen again.

When it’s out, we’ll update this post with what went wrong, how long the outage lasted, and whether there’s anything you need to do on your side.

Should this change how you use Microsoft 365?

One outage doesn’t change the case for Microsoft 365. A server in your own office goes down too, and nobody publishes a review when it does. But today is a good prompt to check a few things:

• Do you have client and supplier phone numbers somewhere other than Outlook?

• Do your staff know what to use if Teams is down?

• Can your most important files open without the internet?

If the answer to any of those is no, we can help you put a simple plan in place. Call us on 1800 620 449.