Widespread outages hit Microsoft customers Thursday, affecting email inboxes, Teams meetings and other services.

Microsoft has not given a time frame for when it expects normal services to resume and has been providing updates through its Microsoft 365 Status social media account.

Around 9:30 a.m., users began reporting problems with Microsoft 365 — the company’s suite of productivity services — on Downdetector, a website that tracks online outages. Tens of thousands of users had reported problems by midday.

The trouble appeared to center on Outlook and Teams, but users of Microsoft’s Xbox network and the artificial intelligence service Copilot also reported issues. Some email inboxes wouldn’t load while others remained effectively frozen in time, unable to send or receive emails.

A Microsoft spokesperson said the company was aware of the reports and investigating, primarily the problems with Microsoft’s Exchange Online, the engine behind Microsoft’s online messaging services like Outlook and Teams.

“We appreciate our customers’ patience while we work to restore services as soon as possible,” the spokesperson said.

The company said all regions are affected and determined earlier that high workloads across multiple areas likely contributed to connectivity issues.

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