{"slug": "microsoft-outlook-returns-for-some-as-millions-of-users-face-second-day-of", "title": "Microsoft Outlook returns for some as millions of users face second day of outages", "summary": "Microsoft's Outlook, Exchange Online and Copilot AI assistant remained severely disrupted Friday as a global outage entered its second day, with Microsoft saying it had \"no evidence of malicious activity associated with this incident.\" In 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. ET service updates, Microsoft reported recovery progress across Europe and Asia Pacific, with Japan \"comparatively more stable,\" and said North American services were improving by 7 a.m. while warning some users may still see intermittent issues. Microsoft extended its email timeout window to 48 hours to protect messages delayed since the outage began Thursday afternoon, and users also reported disruptions to calendar viewing, meeting invites, recently used files in Word, Excel and PowerPoint, external sharing in SharePoint Online, and Copilot chats and responses.", "body_md": "# Microsoft Outlook returns for some as millions of users face second day of outages\n\n## Microsoft has not determined a root cause for the outage, but ruled out the possibility of a hack\n\nMicrosoft's suite of workplace products — including its Outlook email service and Copilot AI assistant — remained severely disrupted Friday as a global outage dragged into its second day, hampering everyday operations for major businesses and millions of users worldwide.\n\n[Microsoft](https://www.foxnews.com/category/tech/companies/microsoft) ruled out the possibility of a hack or other foul play being responsible for the outage, saying \"we have no evidence of malicious activity associated with this incident.\"\n\nIn morning service updates at 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. ET, Microsoft said it was seeing recovery progress across [Europe](https://www.foxnews.com/category/world/world-regions/europe) and the [Asia Pacific](https://www.foxnews.com/category/world/world-regions/asia) region, noting that [Japan](https://www.foxnews.com/category/world/world-regions/japan) remained \"comparatively more stable.\"\n\nServices in [North America](https://www.foxnews.com/category/travel/regions/north-america) were also improving by 7 a.m., though the company cautioned that \"some users may still experience intermittent issues as recovery actions continue.\"\n\n**NATIONWIDE MICROSOFT EMAIL SERVICE OUTAGE DISRUPTS BUSINESS AND PERSONAL ACCOUNTS ACROSS US**\n\nThe disruption began Thursday afternoon and crippled Exchange Online, the underlying engine that powers Microsoft's email infrastructure.\n\nAs of Friday morning, many Outlook users were still unable to access their inboxes or send and receive emails Friday morning as engineers worked to clear email queues and backlogs.\n\nMicrosoft said it extended its email timeout window to 48 hours to protect delayed messages while services recover. Normally, if an email cannot be delivered within a standard window, mail servers give up and bounce the message back to the sender.\n\nThat gives emails caught in the backlog since the outage began Thursday afternoon until at least Saturday afternoon to reach recipients once systems recover.\n\n**CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP**\n\nOutlook, of course, is used for far more than email, with users reporting disruptions to key scheduling and productivity tools. This includes viewing calendars, sending meeting invites or editing existing events.\n\nBeyond Outlook, the disruption is also affecting Microsoft's broader workplace suite, preventing users from viewing recently used files in apps like Word, Excel and PowerPoint, while blocking external file sharing in SharePoint Online.\n\nCopilot, Microsoft's AI assistant integrated across Microsoft 365, also remained heavily disrupted — leaving users unable to load chats, generate responses or pull data from their emails, calendars and files.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/microsoft-outlook-returns-for-some-as-millions-of-users-face-second-day-of", "canonical_source": "https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/microsoft-outlook-returns-some-millions-users-face-second-day-outages", "published_at": "2026-11-13 12:20:43+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-11-13 12:50:59.738374+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-products"], "entities": ["Microsoft", "Outlook", "Exchange Online", "Copilot", "Microsoft 365", "SharePoint Online", "Word", "Excel"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/microsoft-outlook-returns-for-some-as-millions-of-users-face-second-day-of", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/microsoft-outlook-returns-for-some-as-millions-of-users-face-second-day-of.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/microsoft-outlook-returns-for-some-as-millions-of-users-face-second-day-of.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/microsoft-outlook-returns-for-some-as-millions-of-users-face-second-day-of.jsonld"}}