Emails Running Late Today? Blame Microsoft, Not Us

First Contact is a managed IT service provider (MSP) based in Whitefield, Manchester, founded in 2001, offering IT support, cybersecurity, and Microsoft 365 management for growing businesses.

If you've only got a minute: Some of you are seeing delayed or missing emails today. This is a known Microsoft 365 service issue affecting customers well beyond our client base, not a fault with your systems, your inbox, or anything we've done. Microsoft is on it. We're watching it. No action needed from you.

What's happening

Outlook and Microsoft 365 email delivery are running into delays for a chunk of businesses today, ours included. Messages may arrive late, bounce back, or seem to vanish into the void before reappearing an hour later like nothing happened.

Why it's not on us

This one sits entirely with Microsoft's infrastructure, not your setup, your account, or our management of it. There's no fix to apply on our end because there's nothing broken on our end.

What we're doing

Keeping an eye on Microsoft's service health updates and chasing resolution timelines where we can. The moment there's a fix or a clearer ETA, we'll update this post.

What you should do

Nothing, for now. If something urgent absolutely has to land today, call rather than email, and let us know if you need a hand routing round the problem.

FAQs

Is this a First Contact issue? No. This is a Microsoft 365 service issue affecting external users broadly.

Do I need to change any settings? No changes are needed on your end.

How long will this last? We don't have a fixed ETA yet — Microsoft hasn't confirmed one. We'll update this post as soon as we know more.

Should I resend emails that bounced? Once Microsoft confirms resolution, yes — we'll flag when it's safe to do that.