Sending, receiving, and organizing email in Outlook on the web for business
Check Microsoft 365 admin center → Health → Service health for the active Exchange Online or Outlook incident; its detail page is the authoritative source for restoration status and the next Microsoft update time.^1^
Check the outage and restoration updates
- Sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin center with an administrator account.
- Open Health → Service health.
- Under Active issues Microsoft is working on, select the issue affecting:
- Exchange Online
- Office on the web
- Outlook connectivity or email delivery
- Review Status, User impact, Last updated, and All updates.
Microsoft has reported disruption matching these symptoms—Outlook failing to open and users being unable to send or receive email since November 12, 2026.^2^ If your tenant shows an active incident, Microsoft engineering is already working on it; the incident feed, rather than Q&A, will provide the restoration estimate and confirmation when service is restored. For a confirmed Exchange Online degradation, a separate service request is generally unnecessary.^3^
If the admin center cannot be opened, check the public Microsoft service status page. Do not reinstall Outlook while both the desktop application and Outlook on the web are affected across multiple users.
Report it if no incident appears
On Health → Service health, select Report an issue and complete the form. The report appears under Reported issues, where its status can be tracked. Include:
- When the disruption started
- Number of affected users
- Desktop and web clients both affected
- Whether sending and receiving both fail
- Any displayed error text
- The business impact and lack of an email workaround
Reach a human support agent
Since the bot-only route did not expose a case form, move past its suggested results to the human-contact control:
- In the admin center, select Help & support at the lower-right.
- Enter a short description such as:
“All users cannot open Outlook desktop or web and cannot send or receive email; production business communications are blocked.” - After results appear, select the Contact Support headset icon at the top of the page or lower-left.
- Choose Phone or Email, confirm the contact details, and select Contact me.^4^
If Contact Support is absent:
- Confirm the signed-in account is a Microsoft 365 business administrator.
- If every Microsoft 365 subscription was purchased through a partner, contact that partner; direct Microsoft support requires at least one subscription purchased from Microsoft.
- Use Microsoft’s global phone numbers list. Technical support is available in English 24/7. Have the organization’s account details ready. Phone support may send a verification PIN to the email address or phone number registered in the administrator profile.^4^
Because email is unavailable, provide a working telephone number and, where possible, an alternate external email address for support communications.
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