The ongoing Microsoft 365 outage has disrupted email services across US government departments and several major cities, leaving officials unable to send or receive messages and prompting authorities to ask residents to contact local agencies by phone. Cities including Miami Beach, Austin, Jacksonville, Baltimore County, Pasadena, Fremont, Burbank and Santa Barbara have reported email problems, while several police and sheriff departments have also warned of communication disruptions. Officials have said emergency services remain active despite the outage.The disruption has also affected government departments outside the US. Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) has directed people with urgent sanctions-related enquiries to contact the Australian Sanctions Office by telephone. Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) said its messaging services were experiencing a broad disruption, preventing some clients from sending or receiving emails from departmental systems.
US cities and agencies report email disruptions
Local governments across the US have issued notices about problems with inbound and outbound email services following the global Microsoft outage. Baltimore County officials said government staff were unable to send or receive emails and urged residents to contact the relevant departments by phone.Officials in California’s Pasadena, Fremont, Burbank and Santa Barbara also warned residents about email disruptions. Miami Beach, Austin and Jacksonville were among the other cities reporting issues. Several law enforcement agencies have also reported problems with their email and communication platforms. Colorado’s Arapahoe Sheriff’s Office said the outage had delayed bond payments for prisoners.Authorities have assured residents that emergency services are still operating.
Microsoft 365 outage: Current status
In a latest update, Microsoft says it is “seeing positive results for service stability’ as it is “e implementing these actions more broadly across affected regions as we seek to attain persistent recovery”.“We’re seeing positive results for service stability and increased capacity as a result of our latest traffic optimization actions. We’re implementing these actions more broadly across affected regions as we seek to attain persistent recovery. A more comprehensive update can be found at MO1550821 in the Microsoft 365 admin center, as well as http://status.cloud.microsoft if the admin center is not available to you,” the update reads.The outage has affected several Microsoft services, including Outlook, Teams, Microsoft Copilot and other Microsoft 365 applications. Users may experience email delays, issues accessing applications and failures in features that depend on Exchange Online.