On Thursday 12 November 2026, from 18:54 Paris time (17:54 UTC), mailboxes hosted on Exchange Online became unreachable in 74 countries. Outlook, Teams meeting scheduling and Copilot have been disrupted since, and the incident was still open late on the morning of Friday 13 November. It is the third Microsoft 365 outage lasting several hours in 2026.
Outage status on Friday 13 November
Late in the morning, Microsoft reported partial recovery in some regions, but no sustained recovery: servers brought back into service went down again once they received traffic. Microsoft was adding capacity and investigating traffic-routing imbalances. No recovery time had been announced. Current status is on status.cloud.microsoft and, for administrators, in the Microsoft 365 admin center under EX1550543 (Exchange Online) and MO1550821 (Microsoft 365).
Outlook is not working this morning: what to do
- Do not delete your Outlook profile or reinstall Outlook. The outage is on Microsoft's servers. A new profile loses the local copy of your mail and cannot download anything until the service is back.
- Read the mail you already have. Outlook in cached mode keeps a copy on the computer, available offline.
- Do not resend your messages. They wait in the outbox and go out once service is restored.
- Use another channel for urgent matters. Phone, instant messaging, or Teams chats, which kept working during the outage, take over.
- Warn your contacts that email may arrive late. Messages sent to you are held by the sender's server and arrive once service is restored.
Email can go down at any provider. Two things can be prepared, though: keeping access to your messages during an outage, and choosing an email service you can move to another host with the same addresses.
The 12 November outage in figures
| Time (Paris) | Event |
|---|---|
| 12/11, 18:54 | Microsoft reports failed access to Exchange Online mailboxes, first in the Americas (incident EX1550543) |
| 12/11, shortly after 19:00 | Close to 130,000 Outlook reports in the United States on Downdetector, 74 countries and territories affected |
| 12/11, around 19:30 | Microsoft opens incident MO1550821 for all of Microsoft 365, in every region |
| 13/11, 02:12 | Microsoft rolls back a recent network configuration change that coincided with the start of the outage |
| 13/11, 06:43 | Partial recovery depending on the region, incident still open |
According to Microsoft's updates, as reported by IT-Connect:
| Service | Effect |
|---|---|
| Exchange Online and Outlook | Mailboxes unreachable from the web, desktop Outlook and phones, and delayed mail delivery |
| Teams | Calls and chats working, but meeting scheduling and invitations failing, because they rely on Exchange |
| Copilot, SharePoint, Planner | Disrupted, as were admin and security tools (Defender for Office 365, Purview, Intune) |
| Consumer accounts | Outlook.com and OneDrive disrupted |
Microsoft says a process that sets up secure connections was overwhelmed on part of its servers. Those servers failed their health checks, and servers brought back into service went down again once they received traffic. Charles Lamanna, a Microsoft executive, said nothing pointed to a cyberattack. Microsoft has promised a root cause report once the incident is closed.
The New Zealand government said its embassies and consulates could no longer receive email. Australian government agencies and the US House of Representatives were also affected, and the company Workhorse postponed its quarterly results to 16 November.
Three multi-hour outages in 2026
| Date | Duration | Cause given by Microsoft |
|---|---|---|
| 22 January | about 10 hours | part of the North American infrastructure stopped processing traffic |
| 31 August to 3 September | about three days | an authentication configuration used by several services |
| 12 and 13 November | over 11 hours as of the morning of the 13th | an overwhelmed secure-connection process |
When a whole organisation runs on Microsoft 365, a single outage stops email, calendars, shared files and meeting scheduling at once. Neither you nor your IT provider can reach the servers, so all you can do is wait.
Keeping email working during an outage
These measures also apply if you stay with Microsoft.
- A copy of your mail on the computer. Thunderbird set up with IMAP, or Outlook in cached mode, keeps a copy of the mailbox on the machine. During an outage, older messages and attachments remain readable.
- Key contacts outside the mailbox. Export your contacts (vCard format) and keep a list of phone numbers for clients, suppliers and partners that you can reach without your Microsoft account.
- A fallback channel at another provider. If Outlook and Teams both depend on Microsoft, your team needs another way to talk: Nextcloud Talk, Element on a Matrix server, or Tchap for French public servants. Our comparison of Teams alternatives covers them.
- A domain name in your own name, with a registrar separate from your email provider. With it, you can change provider and keep your addresses.
- A written procedure. It says who alerts the teams, what message goes on the website and which number to call at your IT provider.
These measures are summed up in a one-page checklist (PDF, in French) to print or share with your teams.
An email sent during the outage is usually not lost. The sender's server queues it and retries, typically for four to five days. The message arrives late.
Reducing your dependence on Microsoft 365
A European host can have an outage too. Two differences matter:
- You can leave. Free software email relies on open protocols: IMAP to read mail on the server, CalDAV for calendars, CardDAV for contacts. Your mailboxes can be copied to another host, and Thunderbird or Outlook keep reading them.
- Services do not fail together. Email with one host, files on a Nextcloud with another, video calls on a third tool: an outage in one does not stop the others.
flowchart LR
subgraph A["One provider"]
M["Microsoft 365<br/>email, calendar, files, video"]
end
subgraph B["Separate services"]
Z["Email<br/>Zimbra at a European host"]
N["Files and calendars<br/>Nextcloud hosted in France"]
T["Chat and video<br/>Talk, Matrix or Tchap"]
end
A -- "one tool at a time" --> B
For a small business, a non-profit or a local authority without on-call staff, we recommend hosted email in Europe: Zimbra at OVHcloud, or Infomaniak in Switzerland. The host runs the servers, spam filtering and backups. The French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) moved close to 50,000 mailboxes from Exchange to Zimbra, as described in our article on public bodies leaving Microsoft step by step.
Files move to Nextcloud, hosted in France on a server in your name, with shared calendars and Nextcloud Talk.
Migrating email and keeping your addresses
- Inventory of mailboxes, aliases, mailing lists and shared mailboxes.
- Mailboxes created at the new host.
- Messages and folders copied with imapsync, in several passes to shorten the cut-over.
- Calendars and contacts moved (iCalendar and vCard formats).
- DNS records (MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC) switched over one evening or weekend.
- Computers and phones set up: webmail, Thunderbird or the phone's mail app.
Everyone keeps their email address and their old messages. The cost of leaving Microsoft 365 is paid once, then there are no more per-user licences.
Frequently asked questions
Why was Outlook down on 12 November 2026?
According to Microsoft, a process that sets up secure connections was overwhelmed on part of the Exchange Online servers. Those servers failed their health checks and went down again once they received traffic. Microsoft ruled out a cyberattack and is due to publish a root cause report.
Is Outlook working again?
Late on the morning of 13 November, Microsoft reported partial recovery, without sustained recovery. Current status is on status.cloud.microsoft and in the Microsoft 365 admin center, under incidents EX1550543 and MO1550821.
Should you reinstall Outlook or recreate your profile?
No. The outage is on the Exchange Online servers, not on computers. A new profile loses the local copy of your mail and cannot download anything until service is restored.
Are emails sent during the outage lost?
Usually not. The sender's server keeps a message it cannot deliver and retries, most often for four to five days. Messages arrive late once service is restored.
What is a European alternative to Outlook and Exchange?
For a small or medium organisation, hosted email in Europe: Zimbra at OVHcloud, or Infomaniak in Switzerland. Mail can be read in webmail, Thunderbird or Outlook over IMAP. An organisation with an operations team can also run a free software mail server such as Mailcow.
Do you keep your email address when leaving Microsoft 365?
Yes. The domain name stays yours. Mailboxes are recreated at the new host with the old messages, then the DNS records are switched over one evening or weekend.
Hebeko can help
Hebeko moves the email and files of small businesses, non-profits and local authorities off Microsoft 365: audit, mailbox migration with the same addresses, hosting in Europe, maintenance and user training.
- Replacing Exchange and Outlook
- Moving from Microsoft 365 to free software
- Nextcloud, the alternative to OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams
- Digital sovereignty, explained
To review your email setup, write to us.
Sources
- Panne Microsoft 365 : Outlook et Teams perturbés, ITdaily, 13 November 2026
- Panne mondiale de Microsoft 365 : Outlook, Teams et Copilot perturbés depuis plus de 11 heures, IT-Connect, 13 November 2026
- Panne mondiale de Microsoft 365 : Outlook perturbé pendant des heures, Le Monde Informatique, 13 November 2026
- Une panne mondiale affecte la messagerie Outlook de Microsoft, France 24 with AFP, 12 November 2026
- Microsoft 365 Status, Microsoft's official account on X, 12 November 2026
- Microsoft 365 outage drags on for nearly 10 hours, The Register, 23 January 2026
- Massive Microsoft 365 outage causes auth issues, service failures, BleepingComputer, 31 August 2026