# Outlook is down across Canada and the U.S., and Microsoft 365 is affected too

> Microsoft blames an infrastructure overload for the Outlook outage that started around midday ET. Copilot and other Microsoft 365 apps are also reporting problems.

- Published: 2026-11-12T19:15:00.000Z
- By: The Circuit Staff
- Type: News
- Topics: Devices
- URL: https://thecircuit.ca/posts/2026-11-12-microsoft-outlook-outage/

Microsoft's Outlook email service is down for many users in Canada and the U.S. this afternoon. Nearly 140,000 people had reported problems to the outage tracker Downdetector by 1:30 p.m. ET, [BNN Bloomberg reports](https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/technology/2026/11/12/widespread-issues-reported-with-microsoft-products-downdetector/), and users also reported trouble with Copilot and other Microsoft 365 apps. According to [Android Authority](https://www.androidauthority.com/microsoft-outlook-outage-nov-2026-3734664/), Downdetector's graph suggests the problems began around 12:20 p.m. ET.

Microsoft says it's investigating. Its service incidents account said part of its infrastructure is "experiencing elevated load across multiple regions," which is likely causing the connection errors, and that it is redistributing traffic across its worldwide infrastructure to balance the load, [TechCrunch reports](https://techcrunch.com/2026/11/12/microsofts-outlook-email-hit-by-new-outage/). The company first described the issue as affecting the U.S. and the Americas, then widened that to "any region."

## What's still unknown

Microsoft hasn't given a root cause or said when service will be fully restored. Its admin centre, where it posts updates for business customers, was hard to reach during the outage, so its account on X has been the main source of updates.

## What you can do

The problem is on Microsoft's side, so there's little to fix on your end. If something is urgent, use another email account or pick up the phone, and check Microsoft's status updates before resetting anything. Microsoft's last major incident was in September, when a days-long Microsoft 365 outage was blamed on a "core authentication configuration" issue.

**Why it matters:** Many Canadian workplaces, schools and governments run their email and documents on Microsoft 365, so a weekday afternoon outage stops a lot of work. Two major incidents in about two months will also add to questions about relying on a single cloud provider.