Microsoft 365 Services Experience Widespread Outage, Affecting Outlook and Teams

On January 22, 2026, Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook and Teams, experienced significant disruptions across North America. Users reported issues accessing emails, joining meetings, and utilizing other Microsoft 365 applications. The outage began around 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time, with reports peaking shortly thereafter.

Microsoft acknowledged the issue, stating, "We identified a portion of service infrastructure in North America that is not processing traffic as expected." The company initiated steps to restore the affected infrastructure to a healthy state and began directing traffic to alternate systems to expedite recovery. By late afternoon, Microsoft reported progress in mitigating the impact but noted that further load balancing was required to fully stabilize the services.

This incident follows a series of recent outages affecting major technology services. On January 14, 2026, Verizon experienced a nearly 10-hour network disruption across the United States, attributed to a software issue. Additionally, earlier in the month, Microsoft released emergency updates for Windows 11 to address critical bugs affecting Remote Desktop users and Outlook functionality.

Microsoft continues to monitor the situation closely and is working to ensure full restoration of services. Users are advised to check the Microsoft 365 status page for the latest updates.