A widespread outage has left many Microsoft Outlook users unable to access their inboxes via web, mobile, or desktop applications. The company confirmed the issues on Thursday, attributing the problem to a faulty configuration change.
Reports of the outage began to surface around 5 p.m. PT on Wednesday, with a significant spike in user-reported problems occurring early Thursday morning, according to Downdetector. At its peak, thousands of users, primarily in the US, were reporting difficulties.
“Users may be unable to access their mailbox using any connection methods,” Microsoft stated on its official service status page. “We’re having issues, but we’re working on it.”
The company later clarified that it had identified the root cause and was implementing an expedited fix. “We’ve begun a broad expedited deployment of the configuration change across all affected infrastructure,” Microsoft announced in an update. “We expect most impacted users will experience relief within the next two hours, as the fix saturates the environment.”
While some users of the broader Microsoft 365 suite also reported problems, the number of reports was substantially lower than for the standalone email service.
The impact of the outage appeared to vary by region. While users in the United States reported significant disruptions, many in the United Kingdom, for instance, experienced no issues. Microsoft acknowledged this, stating it was prioritizing the fix for “regions which are experiencing the highest levels of impact.”
As of writing, reports on Downdetector showed a sharp decline, suggesting that service was being restored for a large number of affected users. Microsoft’s latest updates indicate that a return to normal service is expected shortly for all remaining users.
