Microsoft is moving towards full recovery following a global outage that disrupted Outlook and other services used by millions of people.
The company said queues of emails waiting to be delivered had been “significantly reduced and approaching normal levels,” as Outlook services gradually returned to normal after hours of disruption.
Microsoft said it was continuing to observe “improvements in service availability.”
“Some users may still experience intermittent access issues or delayed email delivery as recovery continues,” the company added.
In a statement on X, the company reported “email delivery performance improving across a growing portion of affected Microsoft 356 infrastructure,” but warned some users may still “experience intermittent issues.”
Earlier, Microsoft said it was making “additional progress toward recovery” and that traffic was “being gradually restored” as its engineers worked to resolve the worldwide outage.
The company said it was “seeing improvements in key scenarios, including mailbox access and delayed email processing, though some intermittent issues may continue.”
The outage affected several services relied upon by office workers for daily operations, including email, meetings, artificial intelligence tools, spreadsheets and document sharing.
Services connected to email or Microsoft’s Exchange Online platform were among those affected.
What is affected by the outage?
Outlook: Email services were the most affected, with some users unable to access their mailboxes or send and receive new messages.
Copilot: Users may also experience difficulties loading chats or receiving responses from Microsoft’s artificial intelligence tool. Copilot may also be unable to access data it normally draws from, including emails, files and calendars.
Teams: Calendar-related functions and previously scheduled meetings may be affected. However, users joining calls directly or exchanging messages may still be able to use the platform.
Word, Excel and PowerPoint: The basic functions of the applications remain available. However, cloud-based services, including printing documents, sharing files through SharePoint and accessing recently used files, may be affected.
Other specialist Microsoft services, including platforms used by organisations to pool company data and monitor devices, may also experience disruptions.
Microsoft said recovery efforts were continuing as it monitored the situation and worked to restore normal service across its platforms.