Is Outlook down today? Microsoft confirms Outlook.com sign‑in issues and ‘service degradation’ (Apr 27, 2026)

Outlook is down: Microsoft confirms Outlook.com sign‑in failures today

Microsoft’s Outlook.com is suffering an ongoing outage on Monday, April 27, 2026, with many users reporting intermittent sign‑in failures, “too many requests” errors, and unexpected sign‑outs. Microsoft has acknowledged “service degradation” and says it is actively working on mitigation. No firm ETA has been provided. (bleepingcomputer.com )

What Microsoft is saying

In updates posted to its service health communications, Microsoft says some Outlook.com customers “may experience intermittent sign‑in failures, including ‘too many requests’ errors or unexpected sign‑outs.” The company adds that it is reverting a “recently introduced change” while continuing to analyze telemetry and customer reports. (bleepingcomputer.com )

How the outage unfolded

• Reports began rising around 5:00 a.m. Eastern and stayed elevated through the U.S. workday, according to outage trackers cited in live coverage. (tomsguide.com )
• By late morning, Microsoft said a rollback of a change “did not provide the intended impact relief,” indicating the first mitigation attempt fell short. (tomsguide.com )
• Microsoft’s status communications also pointed to multiple contributing factors and “unusual error patterns,” suggesting a complex incident rather than a single point of failure. (tomsguide.com )
• Separate updates shared via Microsoft’s status channel referenced heavy resource use in a portion of Copilot infrastructure in North America and traffic rebalancing steps, with “positive signals” reported after optimization. (tomsguide.com )

Who is affected — and what users are seeing

Early indications suggest the disruption is centered on consumer Outlook.com and Hotmail accounts, with many users unable to log into the web client or apps; some reports note iOS app trouble specifically. Microsoft’s public status page wording points to consumer services, while enterprise tenants have not been broadly confirmed as impacted. (tomsguide.com )

Common symptoms reported today include:

• Repeated sign‑in prompts and loops
• “Too many requests” rate‑limit messages
• Sudden sign‑outs while already authenticated
• Inability to load inboxes in web and mobile clients

These align with Microsoft’s description of the issue in its service health posts. (bleepingcomputer.com )

What you can do right now

While Microsoft works on a fix, the following steps may help some users and organizations reduce disruption:

• Verify service status before troubleshooting locally. Check Microsoft’s official service health communications and the Microsoft 365 status channel for evolving guidance and timelines. (bleepingcomputer.com )
• Try alternate access paths. If web login fails, attempt the official Outlook mobile app or vice‑versa; some users have reported success with alternate sign‑in methods such as SMS‑based account verification, though results vary. (tomsguide.com )
• Avoid unnecessary password resets or app reinstalls. Microsoft has attributed the incident to recent service changes; mass credential resets are unlikely to help and could complicate recovery. (bleepingcomputer.com )
• For IT admins: Communicate the outage and set expectations. Point end users to official updates; avoid sweeping client reconfigurations until Microsoft confirms stable remediation. (bleepingcomputer.com )

Security note: Outages often trigger phishing waves. Be cautious with any emails or texts claiming to “restore” Outlook access, and never share MFA codes with unsolicited contacts.

The scale so far

Outage‑monitoring sites have logged sustained spikes in problem reports throughout the morning and early afternoon, consistent with a widespread but uneven impact pattern. Live coverage tracking these sites shows hourly report volumes in the low thousands at peak. (tomsguide.com )

What’s next

Microsoft says it is continuing targeted mitigations and telemetry analysis after its initial rollback did not fully resolve the problem. Given the evolving nature of today’s incident — including references to multiple contributing factors and resource contention on a Copilot component — users should expect periodic updates rather than a single definitive fix notice. (tomsguide.com )

We will update this story as Microsoft posts new guidance or declares the issue resolved.

Background: recent Outlook and Microsoft 365 turbulence

Today’s problems follow a handful of Microsoft 365 service disruptions earlier in 2026, including January incidents that affected multiple apps and services. While the root causes have varied, they underscore how authentication and service‑change regressions can ripple across consumer workloads like Outlook.com. (techradar.com )

How to tell when it’s fixed

You’ll know Outlook is back to normal when:

• You can sign in on web and mobile without looping or error messages.
• Microsoft’s service health communications stop flagging “service degradation” for Outlook.com and confirm mitigation is complete. (bleepingcomputer.com )
• Outage‑monitoring graphs return to baseline and newsroom live blogs cease reporting new issues. (tomsguide.com )

If your account still has trouble after Microsoft declares recovery, try clearing cached credentials, re‑authenticating the app, and checking for any pending client updates — then consult Microsoft’s support guidance if problems persist. (bleepingcomputer.com )