Microsoft says users may be unable to connect to multiple Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook email, after a global outage that began on Thursday and was still listed as a service degradation on Friday morning, 13 November 2026. On its service health page, last updated at 07:29 UTC (09:29 South African time), Microsoft said it was seeing “positive results for server stability” after applying a patch to a portion of its infrastructure, but it gave no time for full recovery.
For businesses that run their email, calendars and files on Microsoft 365, the practical questions are what is down, what still works and what to do while it is fixed.
What Microsoft says is affected
Microsoft’s incident notice says features of Microsoft 365 that interact with Exchange Online, its business email service, are impacted, while parts of those services that do not depend on Exchange Online “remain functional”. According to the notice:
- Email: users may be unable to open their mailbox in Outlook on the web, the Outlook desktop app, mobile sync (Exchange ActiveSync) or REST-based connections, and email delivery may be delayed.
- Teams: most core functions, including calls, meetings, group chats and channel messages, are not impacted. Calendar features that depend on Exchange Online, such as scheduling, invites and meeting edits, are failing, and Live or Virtual events cannot be created.
- SharePoint and files: accessing files stored directly in SharePoint Online remains functional, although sharing files with people outside the organisation may fail.
- Copilot: users may be unable to load Copilot Chat or get answers that use email, calendar and files.
- Security and admin tools: Defender for Office 365 links and quarantine, the Microsoft 365 admin centre, Purview compliance tools, Intune device checks and Planner are among the other services listed with problems.
For personal accounts, Microsoft’s consumer status page earlier listed Outlook.com, OneDrive, OneNote, To Do, Teams and Microsoft 365 for the web as affected. By 08:38 UTC on Friday the same page showed Outlook.com and OneDrive as operational.
What Microsoft has said about the cause
Microsoft says it is “not aware of any malicious activity” behind the incident, and that once it is mitigated it will publish a post-incident report with the root cause and repair items. Its current status note says the patch it is applying is to an “upstream authentication/routing configuration component”.
In an earlier update on Thursday night, reported by ABC7, Microsoft said a process on the affected servers that establishes secure connections “becomes overwhelmed, causing the servers to stop processing requests”, and that it had begun reverting a recent network configuration change that coincided with the start of the problem. CNBC reported that the problems began shortly before 1pm US Eastern time on Thursday, which is about 20:00 in South Africa, and continued through the Asian business day and into the European morning.
What to do while it is being fixed
- Do not resend or delete in a panic. Microsoft says delivery “may be delayed”, not that mail is lost. Note anything time-sensitive you sent from Thursday evening and confirm receipt by phone or another channel.
- Use what still works. Teams calls and chats and files stored directly in SharePoint are listed as working. Put urgent client and supplier conversations there or on the phone.
- Tell customers. A short note on your website or social pages saying email replies may be delayed today avoids missed orders and repeat complaints.
- Watch for phishing. Outages bring fake “reset your password” and “verify your mailbox” emails and messages. Microsoft’s own updates are on its status page; do not enter your password from a link in a message.
- Check deadlines. If a submission, tender or payment instruction was due by email, keep proof of what you tried to send and when, and contact the recipient another way.
What is still unknown
Microsoft has not said when full service will return, how many organisations are affected or whether any email was lost rather than delayed. Its notice promised a next update by 08:30 UTC (10:30 South African time), but the page had not changed from the 07:29 UTC update when we checked shortly before 10:45. We have not seen a figure for South African businesses specifically.
A reminder about single points of failure
The outage is a reminder that email, calendars, files and security tools increasingly sit with one provider. A simple continuity plan, an alternative way to reach key clients, and knowing what your business insurance covers for downtime are cheap to put in place before the next one. Our guides on cybersecurity for South African businesses, business insurance and what it covers and what to do after a data breach set out the basics.
We will update this story when Microsoft confirms full recovery or publishes its post-incident report.
