Is Teams down? What still works and what doesn’t during the Microsoft outage

In case you haven’t noticed, Microsoft Teams and other Microsoft 365 services like Outlook and Copilot are still experiencing a massive, global outage.

And workers around the world are complaining (not me, because I am a professional) that Teams is the only widely-used platform to still be working, sort of.

Even the UK Government have had to lay out an urgent 'contingency plan' due to the global outage hitting police and NHS systems.

According to the company's latest outage update, Teams is only partly affected, but not completely down.

Many users should still be able to join meetings and send messages in existing chats, although calendars, invitations and several other features are experiencing problems.

While Microsoft has reported early signs of stabilisation, service capacity remains way below normal and recovery has varied between users.

What still works on Microsoft Teams?

Microsoft Teams still works, I was just on it (Microsoft)

According to Microsoft's latest supplied update, the following functions on Teams remain available:

- Joining calls.

- Joining existing meetings.

- Messaging in existing group chats.

- Sending standard channel messages.

Individual users may still experience difficulties while services recover.

Which Teams features are affected?

Not all Teams features are working (Getty Stock Images)

Microsoft identified problems with viewing calendars, scheduling meetings, sending invitations and changing meeting details.

Other affected functions include creating live or virtual events, some Copilot features, adding or syncing contacts, accessing app chats, and creating or deleting private and shared channels.

Crucially, being able to join a meeting does not mean scheduling or invitations are working normally.

Why can Teams meetings work when Outlook is down?

Microsoft executive vice-president Charles Lamanna said the outages did not appear to be the result of a cyber attack (Getty Stock Images)

Teams and Outlook share some underlying Microsoft 365 services.

Meeting calendars and invitations rely on Exchange Online, Microsoft's email and calendar platform, while certain Teams calling and messaging functions can operate independently.

That means an existing meeting may remain accessible even when arranging a new one is difficult. Microsoft has not established this dependency as the definitive root cause of the outage.

When will Microsoft Teams and Outlook be working normally?

There's no confirmed time for full restoration, as Microsoft said in their latest update it is seeing 'early signs of stabilisation', but service capacity has 'not yet returned to normal levels'.

System health 'remains variable' it says, as traffic is 'carefully reintroduced'.

"As part of this effort, we are extending the email timeout window to 48 hours to help protect delayed messages while service recovery continues," the statement says.

Microsoft says it is continuing to 'treat this with urgency'.

How can I check whether Microsoft services are back?

Check Microsoft service status and Microsoft 365 Status on X.