Global Microsoft Outage Disrupts Outlook, Teams and Copilot Across Australia

Friday 13 November 2026Microsoft says a network configuration problem overloaded servers, and traffic was gradually restored through Friday and into Saturday.

Featured image: Photo by BalticServers.com (CC BY-SA 3.0), via Wikimedia Commons. Illustrative image of a data centre.

What happened

A global outage of Microsoft 365 hit Outlook, Teams and Copilot early on Friday 13 November, Australian time, according to the ABC’s live coverage. Microsoft said a large number of servers had become unexpectedly unavailable, shifting load onto the remaining infrastructure, and that a process on the affected servers that sets up secure connections became overwhelmed. It said it was reverting a recent network configuration change and that there was no indication of malicious activity or a cyber attack.

More than 120,000 users reported problems with Outlook on Downdetector in the United States, and more than 5500 Australians reported email problems on the platform that morning, SBS News reported. Microsoft said Exchange Online and the scheduling functions in Teams were affected, while Teams messaging and online meetings were largely working and SharePoint files remained accessible.

Impact in Australia

The Australian Federal Police and ASIO confirmed they were affected. Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said Microsoft did not believe the outage was a cyber event, and that the government had activated a digital resilience agreement to prioritise Australian interests. Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino said the economic impact was difficult to quantify, and RSM partner Ashwin Pal estimated lost professional-services work at more than $100,000 an hour.

Queensland Health and Canberra Health Services reported no known clinical impacts, although email, voicemail and some faxes were disrupted in Canberra. Services Australia said customer-facing services and payments were unaffected, and the Australian Energy Market Operator reported no disruption to energy systems and markets.

Dependence on one provider

Many organisations have moved email and collaboration tools to Microsoft 365. University of Queensland’s Dr Micheal Axelsen told the ABC that this concentrates risk in one place. In August, Home Affairs national security head Hamish Hansford had warned of a disproportionate impact from a Microsoft outage, and Microsoft has more than $1 billion in federal contracts this year. The national cyber coordinator has said the government will map its critical dependence on providers, including Microsoft.

Recovery

By late Friday, Microsoft said Asia-Pacific traffic was being gradually restored, and by 1:04am on Saturday it said email queues were approaching normal levels. It extended its email timeout window to 48 hours to protect delayed messages. On Saturday, Microsoft apologised and said the cause was technical, not a cyber attack, with full service still being restored, SBS News reported.

What happens next

Microsoft says it will publish a post-incident report with the root cause and repair items once mitigation is complete. Experts expect a backlog of email on Monday and have warned of phishing attempts that take advantage of the disruption.

More from this day: News Today: 13 November 2026, Australia and World Headlines