Microsoft outage explained: What went wrong with Outlook and Teams, and how it is hitting UAE users

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 Downdetector. Within about an hour, the disruption had spread worldwide. By 6pm Eastern Time, reports had fallen to about 37,000.

5. Outage spreads to 74 countries
Downdetector counted affected Microsoft products in 74 countries and territories, with its map showing impact across the Americas and parts of Europe, Asia and Africa. Thousands of users also reported problems with Teams and Copilot.

6. Email system at the centre of the problem
Microsoft identified “connectivity errors affecting part of its Exchange Online infrastructure”, the system that handles requests from users trying to access their accounts. The company said it was examining network logs to find the source of the problem.

7. Elevated load across multiple regions
Microsoft said: “We’ve determined a portion of infrastructure is experiencing elevated load across multiple regions,” which it believed was contributing to the connectivity errors.

8. First fixes did not work
Microsoft said on Thursday that the steps it had taken to fix the outage were not going as expected, and that it was working on alternative solutions. “We’ve monitored the status of the changes applied to improve serviceability and confirmed they’re not taking as expected. We’re identifying alternate workstreams that can be applied to increase capacity in the face of sustained traffic management imbalances,” the company said in a post on X.

9. Gradual recovery expected
Microsoft said it was “aggressively pursuing all pathways to reduce impact”. It paused deployments, moved traffic away from affected infrastructure and restarted servers. It later reported “limited recovery” and warned that users might see services return gradually as their apps reconnect.

Tips for UAE users
Keep Outlook and Teams closed and reopen them later, rather than refreshing repeatedly. Use the web versions if the desktop apps won’t connect, and check Microsoft’s official service status pages for updates.