Microsoft pushes back email timeout by 48 hours after outage

The outage that has hit Microsoft's Outlook, Teams and Copilot services has forced the $3.88 trillion company to push an email timeout out by 48 hours.

The Microsoft outage started yesterday and has left those services, along with others, unusable for the company's 430 million users.

By extending the timeout, Microsoft intends to let delayed emails be delivered as systems gradually come back online.

We’re opening all available pathways to restore service, as our actions taken thus far have not provided the anticipated relief. We found a core process on affected servers is becoming overwhelmed, causing capacity loss. To validate a potential recovery, we're isolating a portion… — Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) November 12, 2026

Microsoft reportedly blamed the outage on an "elevated load" in its infrastructure and stated that there is no proof of "malicious activity."

In its newest update, Microsoft said: “We’re seeing continued recovery progress across affected regions, with broader improvements in North America, sustained improvements across much of Europe, and encouraging recovery signals in Asia Pacific.”

“Some users may still experience intermittent issues as recovery actions continue. We’re focused on recovery for the remaining affected environments while prioritizing email queue and backlog reduction.”

Difficult week for tech

The Microsoft outage occurred at the close of a rocky week for the tech sector, following the resignation of Nvidia's former CEO Jensen Huang after a string of extramarital affairs came to light.

Nvidia's shares have dropped 15% in the past five days and seem to have weighed on broader financial markets, with Bitcoin sliding to $68,000 in recent hours.

Over the past few weeks, Japanese credit unions, as well as banks in the UK and Australia, have also experienced outages.

These outages were also not blamed on malicious activity, unlike the cyberattacks aimed at European supermarket fridges.