Microsoft said email queues are “approaching normal levels” after an outage that began around noon ET Thursday and left millions of workers worldwide unable to reach their Outlook and Exchange Online mailboxes, with Copilot and Teams calendar features also affected. The company said there’s no indication of a cyberattack, and it extended its email timeout window, which now holds delayed messages for 48 hours before they fail. The outage forced Deutsche Bahn to hold back rerouting schedules, pushed Workhorse Group’s earnings call to Monday, and delayed bail payments at a Colorado sheriff’s office. Anderson Economic Group estimates the lost productivity could approach $7 billion and said refunds on subscription fees, which it put at about $800 million a day, could push that total higher.
