Microsoft Outage Drew 7.4 Million Downdetector Reports, Most of 2026

Microsoft’s outage, which knocked out Outlook and other business software starting Thursday, was still not fully fixed late Friday afternoon, according to Mashable. Microsoft has not published an estimated time for full recovery, and the company declined to comment to Mashable on a new report ranking the outage as the largest of 2026.

That report came from Ookla and Downdetector, which tracks problems based on what users submit. They said the Microsoft outage drew 7.4 million reports on Downdetector, far more than any other outage this year.

How big the Microsoft outage was

All of the following figures come from Ookla and Downdetector, as cited by Mashable, and are counts of user reports, not confirmed numbers of affected people:

• 7.4 million reports about Microsoft services during the outage.
• 2.8 million reports for a YouTube outage in February, which Ookla ranked second for 2026.
• A peak of 19,650 error reports per minute about Microsoft services.
• That peak was more than 1,500 times the normal level, according to Downdetector.

Mashable reported that users were still submitting error reports for Microsoft services nearly 24 hours after the trouble began.

Outlook and enterprise tools down for more than 24 hours

The disruption hit Microsoft software services around the world. Outlook and other Microsoft enterprise services, the tools companies use for email and work, were out for more than 24 hours, according to Mashable. The outlet compared that with an 11-hour Microsoft outage in August that it covered at the time.

Microsoft has not disclosed the cause in the reporting cited here. As of late Friday afternoon, Mashable said the outage appeared to be easing, though service had not been fully restored and no recovery time had been given.

Why it matters

For people who rely on Outlook for work, the outage lasted through more than a full day of email access. The Ookla ranking puts the scale in context: by Downdetector’s count, this event dwarfed every other outage this year, including the February YouTube disruption.

The figures carry a limit. Downdetector depends on reports from users, not on data from the companies themselves, so its numbers cannot be checked independently. Companies sometimes dispute what the site shows.

Amazon Web Services did just that during this event. According to Mashable, Downdetector showed AWS having problems on Thursday at the same time Outlook was failing, and AWS pushed back, saying the site was wrong.

What to check now

Microsoft’s official status channels are the place to confirm whether a given service is back. Users who still cannot reach Outlook can sign out and back in, or update the app, once Microsoft reports the service as restored.

Source: Mashable