A major Microsoft 365 outage on Thursday, January 22, 2026, left users worldwide unable to access key services including Outlook, Teams, and SharePoint Online. The disruption prevented users from sending or receiving emails, joining meetings, and accessing files for several hours. Thousands of outage reports were logged on platforms like Downdetector, with complaints spiking in the afternoon.
Microsoft acknowledged the issue, stating they were investigating a problem impacting multiple Microsoft 365 services. The company later identified a portion of its service infrastructure in North America that was not processing traffic as expected and worked to restore services. Affected services also included the Microsoft 365 admin center, Microsoft Defender, and Microsoft Purview, hindering IT administrators' ability to investigate the issue themselves.