Outlook is down — the latest on the ongoing Microsoft outage
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Outlook not working and users upset
“These instructions are still not working. I’m still being told the following: You’ve tried to sign in too many times with an incorrect account or password. My account and password are correct! You have not corrected the problem!!” from Leslie Barry.
That is a common refrain from many people. Based on an accumulation of comments, it appears that people’s attempts to login today may have blocked the ability to get in, possibly for up to 24 hours.
However, Microsoft has not appeared to say anything about that specific issue. I did see one user suggest that people reach out to M365 sales support who might have a workaround.
Service health to normal?
We’ve confirmed service health has returned to normal and reporting users that have completed the additional steps are able to access Outlook and Hotmail. For the list of mitigation steps and more information, please review the attached screenshot or visit… pic.twitter.com/YHp86VTOYDApril 27, 2026
The Microsoft 365 X account posted that service health has returned to normal.
Reports do seem to be slowly going down but are still around 900 on DD as of this writing. And again, I am still seeing people saying they can’t get access.
I suspect as the West Coast starts to turn off for the work day reports will take a nose dive, but for now it chugs along waiting for Outlook to work.
Finally, going down?
For the first time since 7:50 am ET, it appears the accumulated reports on Down Detector are finally descending.
As of this posting, the graph on DD is sitting at around 957 reports. It’s not a big drop but it’s the first real sustained drop.
Perhaps we’ve finally reached the end of this one.
Microsoft says that service is recovering for Outlook, but if you use the iOS version you have to follow additional steps to get Outlook working again.
Here are the steps from Microsoft:
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
- Scroll down and tap on Mail.
- Select Accounts under the Mail settings.
- Tap on the email account for which you need to reenter the password.
- Tap on Account Settings or directly on the Password field (depending on your iOS version).
- Enter the updated or correct password in the Password field.
- Tap Done to save the changes.
- Open the Mail app to confirm that the account is syncing properly and emails are being sent/received.
Different answers from different sources
“After reviewing the logs collected from internal reproductions we’ve found a pattern of errors that point to a recent backend configuration change that may be causing impact. We’ve completed a roll back of this configuration change. We’re now carefully monitoring the environment to determine if it worked as intended or if there are additional steps required for full incident resolution.”
Which is different from the claimed resolution we saw earlier from the X account.
Issue may have been resolved
After a period of monitoring, we confirmed that our actions to rebalance traffic and optimize infrastructure have resolved the issue. For more information, please see CP1293219 in the admin center.April 27, 2026
The Microsoft 365 X account just posted that the company may have resolved the outage issue.
“After a period of monitoring, we confirmed that our actions to rebalance traffic and optimize infrastructure have resolved the issue.”
I saw some immediate comments from people saying they couldn’t log in, but it’s doubtful the fix will immediately let you back into Outlook. It will likely take a bit for the mitigation to actually hit everyone’s accounts.
We’ll keep an eye on things, but I expect things to resolve over the next hour.
Is Copilot to blame?
While the Microsoft status page is only saying that the rollback of a service update didn’t work, the M365 X account is providing more details about a separate issue, and Copilot may be to blame.
“We’ve determined a portion of our Copilot infrastructure in North America is utilizing a high number of resources, and we’re rebalancing traffic to remediate the issue.”
A follow-up post says that Microsoft rebalanced traffic and optimized the impacted infrastructure. The post claims that the company is seeing positive signals in service health.
Perhaps things will settle down again.
Multiple potential causes
Microsoft provided another update that indicates today’s outage may have multiple causes.
“We’ve identified a recent service change that is potentially contributing to user impact,” the status page reads.
Microsoft says its rolling back that change to see if it fixes the problem. The page also said that the company is investigating “the unusual error patterns” that were observed earlier.
Potential workaround
I’m seeing on the Outlook subreddit people suggesting you use your mobile number to log in rather than your email.
This workaround supposedly works on both browser and app versions of Outlook.
If you’ve been struggling to login give this a try and let us know if it works for you.
What Microsoft is saying right now
The company has yet to provide an ETA for when the testing might resolve and mititgation implemented. For now, it runs on.
Issues have persisted for 8 hours
Today’s Outlook outage started steadily rising around 5 am Eastern as people started trying to log on for work.
Since then the outage has remained steady with around 1500 reports on Down Detector every hour since then.
Unfortunately, as of this posting it doesn’t appear that issues will be resolving any time soon.
Outlook users are upset
Sign-in issues seem to be the most common problem I’m seeing reported across social media. And users are not happy.
“What a joke. Tell us in English what is wrong and what you are doing to fix it and an estimated timeframe. Stop pretending it is a small,issue,” said one person on X.
On Down Detector, several people claimed the iOS app specifically was having issues.
“Each time I refresh a different outlook app fails. Hope they get this resolved quickly,” a commentor wrote.
The Outlook subreddit is filled with posts trying to figure out getting around the sign-in issue and cursing out Microsoft.
Latest update from Microsoft
Microsoft has another update and it appears more specific issues are occurring.
“We’re seeing specific errors related to authentication key failures. We’re working to determine the underlying cause in order to determine our next mitigation steps,” the Microsoft Cloud Status says.
The page does say that you may experience intermittent sign-in failures or unexpected sign-outs.
Staying steady on Downdetector
While Microsoft has been busy reverting changes so users can log in to Outlook again, people are still hanging around on Downdetector reporting problems.
It has dropped slightly since the outage peaked, but it’s still hovering around 1,400 reports, which is relatively high.
Another big update from Microsoft
Microsoft posted a fairly extensive update on its status page. Essentially, the company said that it has reverted a change and is investigating the problem.
“We’ve completed reverting the recently introduced change, however, this has not produced any relief. We’re continuing to investigate the unexpected increase in error rates affecting two separate error scenarios to identify any potential root cause which may be responsible for this. Additionally, we’re closely monitoring service telemetry to discover any other potential actions, or mitigation steps,” said Microsoft on its status page.
Downdetector going up again
Downdetector reports are rising, reaching a record high of almost 1,500. Is this because more people are waking up and trying to get to work, or is something else going wrong? We’re investigating, but Microsoft hasn’t posted any new updates regarding the outage.
Everything else seems good to go
According to Microsoft’s status page, everything besides Outlook is good. We’re seeing some Downdetector reports for other Microsoft services, but those could just be users reporting the wrong service.
iOS seems to be the latest issue
Users in the Downdetector comments section are saying they can’t get the iOS app to connect, which could be a new wrinkle in the ongoing outage.
What errors are we seeing?
According to Microsoft, the main issues users are seeing is intermittent issues signing in to Outlook.com. Specifically, they may experience intermittent sign‑in failures, including “too many requests” errors or unexpected sign‑outs.
If this is happening to you, then know you’re not alone and Microsoft is aware of the problem and working on it.
The latest from Downdetector
The Downdetector reports are staying pretty consistent, fluctuating within the 1,000 range. Currently sitting at 1,173, it’s the highest it’s been so far, but not breaking out of the pattern too much.
Microsoft update
Microsoft posted an update on its Outlook status page. Here’s what the company said: “We’re reverting a recently introduced change to determine if this action provides relief from impact upon completion. In parallel, we’re continuing to analyze customer reports, and we’re closely monitoring service telemetry to identify our next steps and potential mitigation actions.”
When was Microsoft’s last update?
Microsoft hasn’t posted an official update in a while, with the last one coming at 12:48 p.m. UTC (7:48 a.m. ET). That was more than an hour ago, which is pretty long for users waiting to access their email and other Outlook tools.
The company promised an update by 1:30 p.m. UTC (8:30 a.m. ET), but that time has passed without any new developments on Outlook. Hopefully, we get something official soon we can have a better idea of when everything will be back to normal.
A small downturn
While outage reports have remained mostly consistent, the most recent update shows a slight downturn. Sure, it’s only a tiny drop, but it could be a sign that people aren’t flocking to the service as quickly to report problems.
What’s Microsoft doing?
“We’re reviewing a recent change as part of our ongoing investigation and determining next steps,” reads the latest update on Microsoft’s status page.
Reports past 1,000
The reports on Downdetector have officially risen to more than 1,000, which isn’t surprising, as the people on the East Coast in the U.S. are starting to wake up and get online.
Outlook.com is the main issue
“Users may experience intermittent issues signing in to Outlook.com,” says Microsoft’s status page.
This appears to be the main issue people are dealing with at the moment and if Microsoft knows what the problem is, hopefully the company can get the issue solved as quickly as possible.
Microsoft official status
On Microsoft’s status page, the company says, “Service health information for Microsoft products and services designed for personal use by families, individuals, and students.”
So it sounds like the ongoing outage is only impacting home users, and people who use Microsoft services for business should be okay, at least for now.
The reports start
It’s been a slow rise in reports for Outlook, which could be explained by people in the U.S. just getting logged on. Either way, it’s clear something is wrong with Outlook, and if things don’t get fixed soon, we expect the number of reports to keep rising.
