Microsoft Outlook, 365 Services Face Major Outage – Thousands Affected Globally

Thousands of Microsoft Outlook users faced widespread service disruptions on Saturday, March 1, 2025, as the popular email service experienced a significant outage worldwide. The outage also impacted various Microsoft 365 services, including Microsoft Teams, Exchange, and the Microsoft Store.

The outage began around 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time and quickly peaked at over 37,000 outage reports on Downdetector. Most affected users reported issues with accessing emails, server connections, and login functions.

 

The outage was mainly reported across New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles regions, though users from other global locations also faced issues.

Many users took to social media platforms to express their frustration, especially as the outage impacted both personal and business communications.

Microsoft confirmed the issue and attributed the disruption to a "problematic code change", which they promptly reverted to restore services. Microsoft also acknowledged that the disruption extended to Microsoft 365 apps, Teams, Exchange, and Azure services.

We're investigating an issue in which users may be unable to access Outlook features and services. Additional details can be found under MO1020913 in the admin center.

— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) March 1, 2025

 

By 6:00 p.m. ET, Microsoft reported that most services were back online, and they continued to monitor systems to ensure full recovery.

Our telemetry indicates that a majority of impacted services are recovering following our change. We’ll keep monitoring until impact has been resolved for all services. Refer to MO1020913 or https://t.co/vB5FHDUOHj for more detailed information.

— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) March 1, 2025

However, some users are still facing minor glitches with email synchronization and app refresh functions.

 

Despite all these issues, the company remains one of the largest email service providers, with over 400 million users worldwide. This is only because of their fast response & keeping communication with users, which should be every company's motto.

For users still experiencing issues, Microsoft recommends refreshing the app or website and checking for updates on their Service Health Dashboard.