Is Outlook Down Right Now? Exchange Online Outage Hits Thousands of Users

Microsoft Outlook is having a rough time right now. Thousands of users have reported failed emails, login problems, mailbox errors, and freezing. User reports start jumping on August 31 in the morning hours (for users in the US), with DownDetector eventually recording roughly 6,000 Outlook reports at one point.

At the time of writing this, there are over 4000 user reports complaining of login, receiving emails, and more.

The issues aren’t limited to one Outlook app. Users have reported trouble sending, receiving, searching, and accessing their mailboxes. Microsoft has officially acknowledged the incident under EX1464935. The company says Exchange Online functionality is degraded for some users.

The company also identified an authentication component as contributing to the disruption. Engineers are testing a remediation strategy before broader deployment. That explains why the outage can look inconsistent. Some users can access Outlook, while others remain completely locked out.

Microsoft is still working through the incident. There is currently no confirmed timetable for full recovery. The latest we heard from Microsoft is via a post on its 365 Status X account, where it noted, “We’re continuing to fine-tune our remediation strategy as our internal tests progress. Additionally, we’ve confirmed that the authentication component issue impacts other services beyond Exchange Online. For more information regarding other impact scenarios, please see: MO1465074. As Exchange Online remains our most predominantly impacted service, we’re also continuing to provide updates via EX1464935.”

This is a developing story…