Last updated: 13:00, Friday 13 November 2026. This is a developing incident. Jump to the live updates.
Our phone lines are working as normal
Email may be down, but Blowfish Technology is still here. Our service desk team is answering calls as usual and ready to help with anything you need today, outage-related or not.
Since 16:17 UK time on Thursday 12 November, businesses around the world have struggled to open their email. Microsoft’s Exchange Online service, which runs Outlook mail and calendars for Microsoft 365, has been failing for a large number of organisations, including businesses here in the North West.
If your team has spent the last day staring at a spinning Outlook icon, the problem is not your computers, your internet connection or your IT setup. It sits with Microsoft.
Live updates
We are updating this section through the day. Newest updates appear first. All times are UK time.
Microsoft says service availability and email delivery are improving across a growing portion of affected servers, but some users may still see intermittent issues. No time has been given for full restoration. Our phone lines are working as normal on 01695 351778.
Microsoft says it is “seeing early stabilization and capacity improvements as recovery actions continue”, but has not given a time for full restoration. It has extended how long Exchange Online holds delayed email to 48 hours, so messages are not lost. The outage has now spread into Asia-Pacific business hours, with governments and airlines there also affected. Our phone lines are still working as normal on 01695 351778.
Microsoft has completed recovery work on parts of the affected servers and is gradually restoring traffic. Mailbox access and delayed email are improving. Microsoft says there is no sign of a cyberattack and will publish a full incident report once service recovers.
Microsoft’s patch is being rolled out more widely and some users have their mailboxes back. Microsoft has not given a time for full recovery. Mail sent during the outage is delayed, not lost. Blowfish phone lines are unaffected and our service desk is taking calls as normal on 01695 351778.
Microsoft reported it was adding servers to cope with a surge in traffic, after partial recovery in some regions earlier in the night did not hold.
Microsoft said an earlier change was not having the expected effect and it was reviewing how traffic is routed.
Users start losing access to Outlook mailboxes through Exchange Online. Microsoft opens incidents EX1550543 and MO1550821.
What happened
Microsoft is tracking the problem under incident EX1550543 for Exchange Online and MO1550821 for the wider Microsoft 365 impact. Users have been unable to connect to their mailboxes through Outlook on desktop, on the web and on mobile.
Services that rely on Exchange Online have also been affected, including Teams calendars and meeting scheduling. A separate Teams chat incident, TM1550488, was resolved on Thursday.
Microsoft has not yet confirmed a root cause. Its updates say a process on the affected servers that handles secure connections becomes overwhelmed, after which those servers stop responding. Microsoft also says it is not aware of any malicious activity behind the incident.
Where things stand now
Overnight, Microsoft deployed a fix and began adding extra capacity. By lunchtime on Friday it was reporting encouraging recovery progress, with email delivery improving for a growing number of users, but recovery is not complete and Microsoft has not given a time for full restoration.
“Some users may still experience intermittent issues as recovery actions continue.”
Microsoft 365 Status, 12:09 on Friday 13 November
Microsoft has extended how long Exchange Online keeps trying to deliver delayed email to 48 hours, so mail sent during the outage should still arrive. The disruption has also reached Asia-Pacific, where government email in Singapore and Japan has been affected.
You can follow Microsoft’s own updates on the Microsoft 365 status page. Admins can see full detail under Service health in the Microsoft 365 admin centre.
What your business should do now
Do not resend emails
Mail sent during the outage is delayed, not lost. Resending creates duplicates that will arrive once the service recovers.
Leave Outlook and passwords alone
Reinstalling Outlook, removing accounts or resetting passwords will not fix a fault on Microsoft’s side, and it can leave you with extra work once service returns.
Treat “Microsoft” emails with suspicion
Criminals use high-profile outages to send fake messages asking people to log in again or install a fix. Microsoft will not email your staff a fix. Warn your team today and report anything suspicious before clicking.
Keep urgent work moving by phone
Call clients and suppliers about anything time-sensitive, such as completions, payments and deadlines, rather than waiting for email to return. The same goes for us: if you need IT help, pick up the phone and call 01695 351778.
What this outage tells us
No cloud provider is immune to outages, including Microsoft. The businesses that coped best this week already knew who to call, how to reach clients without email and where their critical information lived.
If yesterday caught your business unprepared, it is a good moment to look at your continuity plan. Our guide to business continuity testing for SMEs is a practical place to start.
We are still here. Our phones are working.
Microsoft’s outage does not affect our phone lines. Our locally based service desk is answering calls as normal and can tell you whether a problem is caused by the outage or something else.
If you would like a review of your Microsoft 365 setup and continuity planning once things settle, get in touch with our team.
