Tens of thousands of Microsoft Outlook users found themselves locked out of their accounts due to a significant service disruption early on Sunday. The issues peaked around 2.30 am.
The tech giant, however, confirmed that the issue had been resolved, and it was investigating the problem.
Reports of issues with Outlook began to surface late Saturday, affecting over 37,000 users, according to DownDetector. Despite widespread reports, Microsoft's service status page reportedly displayed no issues.
The disruption was not limited to Outlook alone. Microsoft confirmed that other services under the Microsoft 365 umbrella, including Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, and Azure, were also impacted. Microsoft 365, which manages these services, stated in a post, "We've identified a potential cause of impact and have reverted the suspected code to alleviate impact." The tech giant continues to monitor the recovery process.
Besides Microsoft 365 services, users also reported issues with Xbox services, which are owned by Microsoft. Many took to social media to express their frustrations, with some users stating, "What's the point of these Microsoft service status pages if they show the wrong status when the entire world is tweeting about Outlook being down."
By early Sunday, Microsoft announced on X that the suspected code causing the disruption had been reverted in an effort to "alleviate impact." They are currently reviewing telemetry and customer logs to fully understand the scope of the issue and ensure all services are restored. "Our telemetry indicates that a majority of impacted services are recovering following our change. We’ll keep monitoring until the impact has been resolved for all services," the company said.
This recent outage follows a series of issues Microsoft Outlook has faced in recent weeks. In the past two years, the tech giant has experienced massive global outages, including one in November 2024, where Outlook and Teams services were down for over 24 hours.
The outage has reignited discussions on social media, with users sharing their experiences. One user exclaimed, "I thought I was getting my outlook hacked, turns out the entire Microsoft platform is getting hacked. Thank God it's not personal." Another reported, "Had to change my password 3 times until I checked on #x that #outlook is down. Wth @Microsoft."
Microsoft's ongoing review aims to ensure that these issues are fully resolved and to prevent future occurrences. As the company works to restore full functionality, users are urged to stay updated through official channels for the latest information.