New York, January 23, 2026, 08:16 EST
- Microsoft confirmed it has restored access to Microsoft 365 following an outage that affected several services.
- Downdetector reports dropped sharply from the previous day’s peak of over 15,000 user submissions.
- The outage hit Outlook, Teams, and multiple admin and security tools.
Microsoft announced it had restored access to its Microsoft 365 suite on Friday following an outage that disrupted service for thousands of users. Reports of issues on Downdetector have since declined toward normal levels. Reuters
The incident hit hard because Microsoft 365 powers a huge chunk of office work: emails, shared files, meetings, and the admin consoles that manage it all. When it falters, companies notice immediately—in inboxes, calendars, and help desks alike.
The update also covered background tools that kick in when needed, like Microsoft Defender and Microsoft Purview. Defender handles Microsoft’s security suite, while Purview manages data governance and compliance—key for companies monitoring sensitive info.
According to Downdetector, reports hit a high of over 15,890 the previous day, Reuters noted. By 1:05 a.m. ET on Friday, that number had dropped sharply to around 113 reports, the tracker indicated.
Microsoft reported that multiple Microsoft 365 services, such as Outlook, Microsoft Defender, and Microsoft Purview, were impacted, according to Reuters. The company responded by redirecting traffic to alternative infrastructure while it tackled the problem, after discovering that part of its North American infrastructure wasn’t handling traffic correctly.
TechCrunch reported that the outage blocked users from accessing email inboxes, files, and meetings. According to Microsoft’s status page, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and OneDrive were all affected. Users also couldn’t create chats or meetings in Teams. On the admin side, access to Purview and Defender XDR dashboards was down — with XDR standing for “extended detection and response,” a security monitoring and response tool. TechCrunch
TechRadar reported that Downdetector complaints hit their highest point around 3 p.m. ET. They also pointed out that incident reports for rivals like Google’s Gmail spiked during the outage, despite Google’s status pages indicating no problems. TechRadar
Microsoft 365’s status page confirmed the affected infrastructure is now fully operational and the issue has been resolved, Reuters reported. However, Microsoft hasn’t shared specifics on what caused the failure.
The main question now is if the fix works smoothly across all regions and tenants, and if any sporadic side effects continue to impact business users. Microsoft’s public updates mention rerouting and traffic rebalancing — quick moves that can bring service back online but might still cause some scattered disruptions if the root problem isn’t completely resolved.
