Outlook email is down

As of November 12, 2026, Microsoft reports an active Microsoft 365 service degradation that can prevent Business and Enterprise users from connecting to services, so your workplace outage is likely part of that broader incident rather than a problem with an individual computer.^1^

What to do now

• Monitor Microsoft’s public status page: ^1^
  This does not require access to workplace email.
• Contact your IT staff by phone, text, or another approved channel. Ask a Microsoft 365 administrator to check your organization’s tenant-specific status:
  1. Sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin center.
  2. Open Health > Service health.
  3. Check Exchange Online and Active issues Microsoft is working on. The incident details show the affected services, user impact, status, and Microsoft’s updates.^2^
• If administrators cannot reach the admin center, they should use the same public status page above. Microsoft specifically documents that page as the fallback when admin-center sign-in is unavailable.^2^

A Microsoft-side incident normally does not require employees to reinstall Outlook, reset passwords, or change account settings. Administrators should first confirm that your organization is included in the Exchange Online incident and follow Microsoft’s recovery updates. When Exchange Online is marked degraded, Microsoft states that mail may be delayed and its engineers are already working to restore service.^3^

If Microsoft later marks the service restored but your entire workplace still cannot connect, your administrator should use Service health > Report an issue or open a Microsoft 365 support request. Individual Outlook troubleshooting is appropriate only if the broader service is healthy and the problem remains limited to one or a few computers.

References

1. Microsoft service health status
2. How to check Microsoft 365 service health
3. Find and fix email delivery issues as a Microsoft 365 for business admin