Microsoft 365 disruptions carried from Thursday into Friday left many users without Outlook email chimes or Teams message pings and prompted widespread online complaints.
The Story
A Microsoft 365 disruption that affected services including Outlook and Teams left many users reporting no new email notifications or Teams message pings as it extended from Thursday into Friday, including Friday the 13th.
Users described repeatedly refreshing their inboxes while some said work continued using other tools or alternate messaging apps. One person wrote on Reddit, “Having meetings on WhatsApp now instead,” while another said, “My boss pointed out the program that has our training on still works.”
Some turned to social media for entertainment or distraction, including posts about staying on screens and playing Xbox. Others said the outage offered a break from constant notifications, though one comment joked, “Hopefully outlook is down for the remainder of the day.”
The disruption also sparked a flood of memes and brand posts that framed the outage as an opportunity to pause or go offline. Air India wrote on X, “Emails can wait. The world has been waiting long enough,” and added, “A change of outlook we'd highly recommend” with an airplane-window photo.
Aldi’s UK account posted on Facebook, “Microsoft being down is the equivalent of an adult snow day right?!” Burger King directed a message at Microsoft that read, “whoever’s troubleshooting and working on the outage rn…take your time. go out and get a Whopper.”
In a note on offline activities, the World Health Organization suggested taking a break from screens and stretching or walking.
The outage was reported to affect an unknown number of users, with the total potentially reaching as high as 450 million, a figure Microsoft has cited as the number of paid customers of its Microsoft 365 apps.
← More stories