SEATTLE – Microsoft reports it’s looking into a major disruption affecting its Microsoft 365 cloud services. Thousands of users in North America, and possibly other regions, reported problems getting into core tools. Reports mentioned Outlook, Teams, Microsoft Defender, Microsoft Purview, and other connected services. Issues started appearing in the early afternoon (Eastern Time), then quickly climbed on outage tracking sites.
Downdetector showed a sharp rise in complaints, peaking at roughly 15,000 to 16,000 reports for Microsoft 365 at around 3 pm ET. Many users saw errors when trying to send or receive email in Outlook, including the “451 4.3.2 temporary server issue” message. Others faced slow loading, sign-in trouble, or pages that would not open in browser versions of the apps.
The disruption appeared to hit business and enterprise Microsoft 365 customers the hardest, while many consumer features seemed to keep working or were less affected.
Microsoft’s @MSFT365Status account on X posted an update soon after reports began to spread. At about 1.37 pm ET (time zone adjusted), the company said it was investigating a possible problem affecting several Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook, Microsoft Defender, and Microsoft Purview. At the same time, social media and support forumsare filled with posts from professionals describing stalled work, missed messages, and interrupted remote meetings.
Later in the afternoon, Microsoft shared more details. It said part of its service infrastructure in North America was not handling traffic as expected, and teams were working to bring it back to a healthy state.
Microsoft also said it was rebalancing traffic while the fix continued. As the evening went on, Downdetector reports started to fall, dropping to around 4,000 by 6 p.m. ET, which pointed to partial recovery or fewer users online after typical office hours.
The disruption came one day after reported issues on 21 January affecting Teams and other services, which raised fresh concerns about service stability in early 2026.
How the Microsoft outage affected organisations and users
For organisations that depend on Microsoft 365 for daily work, the outage caused immediate disruption. Email delays in Exchange Online left messages queued or triggered temporary SMTP errors, which could lead to missed deadlines and broken communication chains.
Teams users also reported uneven performance, with problems starting chats, joining meetings, or keeping presence status up to date. That caused extra friction for hybrid teams trying to work together.
Teams responsible for security and compliance felt the impact too. Microsoft Defender and Microsoft Purview issues could make it harder to track threats or manage data policies during the disruption.
Enterprises of all sizes, schools, and government bodies that rely on these services reported varying levels of slowdown. Some administrators checked the Microsoft 365 admin centre for tenant details, while others watched the public service health dashboard.
The timing, mid-afternoon on a weekday, made the outage harder to manage. Many workers tried workarounds such as personal email or other messaging tools to keep work moving.
Context and recent outages
Large Microsoft 365 outages are not common, but they do happen. Past multi-hour incidents have shown how much day-to-day work now depends on cloud services. This outage followed a familiar pattern, with North American infrastructure described as a key problem area.
Microsoft has pointed to ongoing work on redundancy and monitoring. Still, as more organisations rely on cloud tools, even short downtime can quickly affect teams, customers, and broader operations.
By late 22 January into 23 January 2026, Microsoft said mitigation was still underway, with signs of improvement in its updates. The company directed users to the Microsoft 365 service health page and @MSFT365Status for current information. Microsoft did not ask end users to take any action, although IT teams were advised to keep an eye on their tenants.
Organisations impacted by the outage were also reminded to keep backup plans ready, such as offline options where available and secondary channels for urgent communication. Microsoft had not shared a root cause or a full timeline for a complete fix at the time, but its updates suggested progress towards full service restoration.
The incident underlined how connected modern workplaces have become, and how much day-to-day work depends on reliable cloud services.
