UPDATE: 2026/01/21 13:39 EST BY CORBIN DAVENPORT
Microsoft says the problem should now be resolved. The company said on its status page, “We’ve determined this issue was a result of a third-party ISP Autonomous System Number (ASN) routing configuration issue, and we’ve identified that the third-party has taken action to remediate the impact to downstream services, such as Microsoft 365, and we’ve confirmed the issue is no longer occurring.”
If you can’t get Microsoft Teams, Outlook, or other Microsoft apps to work right now, you’re not alone. There’s an outage that has taken out several Microsoft 365 services, and a fix is in the works.
Microsoft has confirmed that “a potential issue impacting Microsoft 365 services, including Teams and Outlook” is currently disrupting service. The website Downdetector has received a spike in outage reports for Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365, the Microsoft Store, and Xbox Live services. The Outlook problem affects both the client applications and the backend email service, the latter of which also powers Hotmail email addresses.
In addition to Outlook and Microsoft Teams, the outage is breaking the cloud-based versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and other Office software. Editing and opening local documents in the native apps should still work—Word on my Mac is still operating as normal. There are also reports that Clipchamp, the video editor packaged with most new Windows PCs, can’t open projects.
Microsoft said on its official status page, “Our investigation so far indicates impact is associated with a possible third-party networking issue. We’re recursively investigating the health of the Microsoft-managed service environment to identify whether any mitigation actions are required and ensure our services are healthy.”
This isn’t the first significant outage we’ve seen this month. Verizon had a nationwide disruption last week that broke cell service and Fios land-based internet for many customers. Verizon has still not disclosed what caused that outage, but the company did provide a $20 service credit that subscribers had to manually claim as a half-hearted apology.
These 10 massive outages prove just how easily the internet can go dark
A single typo, a routine maintenance error, or a targeted attack can plunge millions into darkness.
Yahoo Mail and AOL were also down earlier today, but that has already been fixed. There’s not much else to do but wait for the issue to be solved. This also serves as another reminder to have local backups in case of emergencies wherever possible.
