Microsoft Outlook was down — live updates on email outage

Microsoft acknowledges outage

On the Microsoft status page, the company said, "We're having issues, but we're working on it."

Further down the page, Outlook.com is showing as down, with Microsoft saying, "Users may be unable to access their mailbox using any connection methods."

The company says Outlook.com, Outlook Mobile and the Outlook desktop client could be impacted.

The reports come rolling in

After a gradual up and down, Microsoft Outlook suddenly saw a huge spike in outage reports on Down Detector, reaching as high as 2,100 shortly after 9:45 a.m. ET on Thursday.

Users react

Whenever there's a big outage like this one, users will often jump on Down Detector to comment on the situation. One user spoke a bit about what they're currently deal with: "I appear to be able to sign in - but the mailbox doesn't open. Outlook desktop says the account is 'disconnected.' Found this to be true over multiple devices and different ISPs."

Another user said, "Same with us, logged into MSN fine. Live email won't connect but we can access a hotmail account. Tried multiple devices but can't get in."

Microsoft working on it

Further elaborating on the situation, Microsoft commented on its actions. Here's what the company said:

"We're continuing to apply the configuration changes to fix the underlying problem and completing additional validation efforts to ensure authentication components are properly configured. In parallel to the current deployment of the configuration change fix, we're reviewing options to leverage an expedited deployment methodology in regions which are experiencing the highest levels of impact to provide the most effective relief where possible."

That means we may be approaching the end of the Outlook outage, but we'll have to wait and see.

Nothing on X

Microsoft hasn't posted anything on X about the problem. That's not overly surprising, as the company hasn't posted on the Outlook X account since June. Still, with this outage officially starting around 12 hours ago, it's a bit odd for the company to post nothing, since not everyone is religiously checking the status page.

Next update

Microsoft says it'll have another update by Thursday, July 10, 2025, at 4:30 p.m. UTC. That's 12:30 p.m. ET, so we could be look at a couple hours before anything significant happens.

Of course, the word "by" means Microsoft could put out an update sooner, but we'll have to wait and see.

Reports still hovering

The number of reports on Down Detector has remained pretty consistent since the initial spike. As of this post, it's sitting at just under 2,200, which is close to where the reports were when this outage really got going.

What does that mean? Users are consistently still hitting the popular outage reporting platform to say that something is wrong, which means most aren't seeing any kind of fix yet.

A big spike

Just as reports seemed to level off, they suddenly spiked by more than 200, up to 2,440. That's never a good sign for Outlook coming back soon, as more users filing reports usually means the issue is becoming more widespread.

Frustration

Email is an essential form of communication for many people online. As such, a massive service like Outlook going down can have a profound impact on people's ability to get through their day, leading to significant frustration.

One user in the Down Detector comments said, "Why cant they make it work. Its just an email client?"

Another took an even more negative approach: "changing all my accounts to google. This company is dying." That's a bit of a stretch, and Google has had outages, too, but it's easy to see just how upset users are by this outage.

Are you experiencing Outlook issues?

Is Outlook down for you? Are you one of the lucky few who can still access your email?

Let us know!

All quiet

Unfortunately, nothing much has happened with the Outlook outage. It's still down, people around the world are unable to access to their email and it's not good.

We'll keep digging to see if we can find out more information about when Outlook will start working again.

2,600 and steady

The reports on Down Detector jumped to 2,600 and have stayed pretty steady since. Hopefully, we start to see a decline soon, as it would be nice for people to be able to access their email again.

The first downturn

After sitting steadily at 2,600 for a while, we've finally seen a slight downturn in Down Detector reports, with Outlook currently at a lower level, closer to 2,400.

Could this be a sign that the outage is finally coming to a close? It's too soon to say, but it's certainly a good sign.

The fix was broken

Microsoft 365 posted on X, stating that it had deployed a fix; however, the fix had an issue. Here's what the company said:

"We identified an issue with the initial fix, and we've corrected it. We're continuing to deploy the fix, and we're closely monitoring the deployment to ensure no further issues are encountered."

Here's what we know

Microsoft Outlook is having a significant outage, with thousands of users reporting issues connecting to the email service.

Microsoft has acknowledged the issue, even saying that it implemented a fix. However, the fix may have caused additional problems.

At this point, we're mostly just waiting for the second fix, which Microsoft has said it deployed, to start working.

Test your Microsoft knowledge

While you wait for Outlook to come back online, why not test your Microsoft history knowledge with this fun quiz.

The end is finally near?

The end of the outage might be here, as there's been a massive drop in the number of reports on Down Detector. What peaked at as high as 2,800 reports is down to 1,792. That's a good sign for Outlook coming back, but we'll have to keep an eye on things.

Microsoft posts update, still down

Microsoft has posted on its status page at 12:30 p.m., as promised. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem the company has much new to report.

Here's what the company lists as the current status:

"We’ve begun a broad expedited deployment of the configuration change across all affected infrastructure. We expect most impacted users will experience relief within the next two hours, as the fix saturates the environment. We’re closely monitoring service health telemetry to ensure the recovery continues as expected. We understand how impactful incidents of this type can be, and we're continuing to open any additional workstreams to expedite recovery and restore availability."

A beautiful sight

We're down to 821 reports, by far the lowest they've been since this outage started.

Back in business

"Our configuration changes have effectively resolved impact in targeted infrastructure. We’re now deploying the changes worldwide to resolve impact for all users," said Microsoft in an X post.

The part where Microsoft says it's deploying it means it could take some time before it starts working for you, but at least we know the end is in sight.

A few remaining reports

While the outage appears to be mostly over, there are a few reports still rolling in on Down Detector, indicating that some users are still having problems. In fact, there are 455 reports as of this writing, which is enough to be remain a cause for concern.

Four hours in

Here's where we stand after about four hours of reported outages.

Reports have dwindled down to under 400 on Down Detector, sitting around 350 as of this writing.

We are seeing comments from some people that Outlook is back up for them.

Has it recovered for you?

Not quite over

We're waiting to see if it will end, but the Outlook outage is still drawing in reports even if it is around 250 on Down Detector.

Intermittent outages

While the Microsoft 365 Portal shows Outlook as being "all good" we are seeing comments that the Outlook service is popping in and out of usability.

Perhaps that's why reports refuse to completely die down and have been hovering around 250 for the last hour or so.

It's basically over

We were waiting for the outages to reach under 100 reports, and it's basically reached that point with reports on Down Detector down to around 110 reports now.