Millions of people around the world, including in the UAE, were left unable to access their emails and work chats after a major Microsoft outage knocked out Outlook, Teams and other Microsoft 365 services. The disruption began on Thursday and was still affecting users on Friday morning, with Microsoft admitting that its first attempts to fix the problem had not worked. With businesses, government offices and schools relying on these tools every day, the outage has caused widespread frustration. Here’s what we know so far.
1. Outlook, Teams and Microsoft 365 hit
The outage disrupted Microsoft’s email and work apps, including Outlook, Teams, Copilot and the wider Microsoft 365 suite. Many users couldn’t access their mailboxes, send emails or connect to Teams.
2. UAE users affected
On Friday morning, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams were the three most reported services on Downdetector’s UAE site, with sharp spikes in complaints as of 8.42am.
3. From the Americas to ‘any region’
Microsoft first said it was investigating reports of problems “in the Americas”. It later widened that, saying the issue was affecting Microsoft 365 service connectivity for users “in any region”.
4. Problems began on Thursday
In the US, around 130,000 Outlook users reported problems shortly after 1pm Eastern Time (6pm GMT, or 10pm UAE time) on Thursday, according to…
