Microsoft outage disrupts businesses, schools and govts worldwide

The company clarified that the outage was caused by a technical problem rather than a cybersecurity breach., the incident originated during an earlier network capacity upgrade and surfaced following a subsequent network change. The company said queues of undelivered emails had been significantly reduced and were approaching normal levels.

The problems began around midday Thursday on the US East Coast before spreading across the globe. Reports indicated that as many as 430 million users were affected at some point during the disruption. In the United States, frustrated employees at some companies left work early on Thursday as workplace communication systems became unavailable.

In Australia, businesses struggled to print invoices, while several schools were unable to conduct online classes on Friday. The disruption continued for hours, with widespread problems still being reported as late as 10:30 p.m. ET on Thursday.

In a statement posted on X around 1 p.m. ET on Friday, Microsoft apologized to customers and partners for the inconvenience. “We are deeply sorry for the disruption this incident has caused our customers and partners,” the company said, adding that it was witnessing broad recovery and greater stability across its services.

Microsoft said it had addressed the underlying issue and was gradually restoring services to remaining customers and regions. The company explained that the phased restoration process was necessary to ensure stability as demand returned. The outage triggered mixed reactions among users.

Some US office workers joked about getting an early start to the weekend because of the email disruption, while others continued working through alternative platforms such as Slack, telephone calls and face-to-face meetings. However, small businesses faced difficulties finding alternatives for communication, while some local governments advised residents to contact their offices by telephone instead of email.

The economic impact could be substantial. -based Anderson Economic Group, the outage could result in approximately $7 billion in lost productivity. Patrick Anderson, president of the firm, estimated that around 26 million users on Thursday and 51 million on Friday may have experienced operational disruptions resulting in economic losses.

He warned that the financial impact could rise beyond the initial estimate. Australia was among the countries significantly affected by the disruption. The outage interrupted live feeds from courts, while schools sent text messages to parents asking them to report student absences by telephone until email services were restored.

Australia's national broadcaster, ABC, reported that some people missed job interviews because they could not access virtual meetings. The disruption also reportedly caused supply-chain problems at distribution centres responsible for stocking supermarkets. Initially, Microsoft said the connectivity problems were affecting users in the Americas.

However, the scale of the disruption gradually became clear as reports emerged from countries around the world. Downdetector recorded a peak of approximately 130,000 reports concerning Outlook outages, although the actual number of affected users was believed to be significantly higher, as most people do not report service disruptions.