Microsoft 365 Outage: What Happened and What It Means for Users

1/23/2026 Outage Update

Update (January 23, 2026): Microsoft has confirmed that the widespread Microsoft 365 outage affecting email, meetings, file access, and admin tools has been fully resolved.

The disruption, which began on January 22, lasted just over nine hours for some users. During that time, organizations reported problems with core services including Outlook, Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, and parts of the Microsoft 365 Admin Center. Many users still experienced issues into evening of January 22nd. As of the morning of January 23rd all services should be operating at full capacity.

If you are still experiencing issues, please reach out to us by submitting a ticket using your Hexi-Tech SupportPal and giving us a call at 877-315-HEXI.

What Microsoft Says Happened

Microsoft stated that the outage was caused by capacity strain during a routine maintenance event within its North America infrastructure. As traffic shifted, backup systems became overloaded, leading to widespread service impact. Engineers mitigated the issue by rebalancing traffic and restoring affected systems.

Current Status

• All impacted services are now operating normally
• No customer action is required
• Microsoft continues to monitor systems for stability
• No data was lost during this outage, however email delivery was affected.
• Emails Sent/Received during this time may have bounced and not made it to their destination.

While large-scale outages like this are uncommon, this incident highlights how reliant organizations have become on cloud productivity platforms—and why clear communication during service disruptions is critical.

Original Article….

On January 22, 2026, Microsoft 365 experienced a widespread service disruption that impacted organizations around the world. Many users suddenly found themselves unable to access email, join meetings, or use familiar collaboration tools that businesses rely on every day.

While outages like this are rare, they can feel especially disruptive because Microsoft 365 is so deeply embedded in daily work.

What Services Were Affected?

Reports from users and organizations pointed to issues across several core Microsoft 365 services, including:

• Outlook – problems accessing mailboxes, delayed email delivery, and login failures
• Microsoft Teams – difficulty joining meetings, sending messages, or connecting to calls
• Microsoft Defender and Microsoft Purview – interruptions to security and compliance dashboards
• Microsoft 365 Admin Center – limited or unreliable access for administrators

For many businesses, this meant internal communication slowed or stopped entirely for a period of time.

What Caused the Outage?

Microsoft acknowledged the issue and confirmed that the outage was related to problems within its cloud infrastructure. In simple terms, some of the systems that route traffic and keep services running smoothly were not handling requests correctly.

This wasn’t caused by anything users did, nor was it related to local networks, devices, or passwords. The issue was on Microsoft’s side of the service.

How Widespread Was It?

User reports came in from multiple regions, with thousands of organizations affected at the peak of the incident. Outage-tracking sites and social media filled quickly with reports from businesses unable to access email or Teams during normal working hours.

Some users experienced a complete outage, while others saw intermittent issues or slow performance.

What Did Microsoft Do?

Microsoft engineers began investigating immediately after the outage was detected. As mitigation steps were applied, services gradually started to recover, though not all users were restored at the same time.

At the time of the incident, Microsoft did not provide a firm recovery timeline, which is common during large-scale service disruptions while teams work to stabilize systems.

The Bigger Picture

Cloud services like Microsoft 365 offer enormous benefits: reliability, security, and constant updates. However, even global platforms can experience occasional disruptions. While frustrating, these events are typically short-lived and followed by internal reviews and improvements.

For most organizations, Microsoft 365 remains a stable and dependable platform—but days like this are a reminder that no online service is completely immune to downtime.

Receiving Support from Hexi-Tech

If you are in need of support, you can call us at 877-315-HEXI or use your Hexi-Tech SupportPal to submit a request. Since email services are currently affected by this outage, please know you may not receive updates about your service request in your email like usual. Due to this outage, we recommend using the Hexi-Tech SupportPal to submit requests and NOT emailing help@hexi-tech.com at this time.

Check back often as we will update this article as we receive more information on the service outage.