iCloud outage took down Mail, Calendar and sign-in for 93 minutes, Apple says

Apple’s iCloud went down for about an hour and a half on November 10, taking iCloud Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Photos and iCloud sign-in with it. Apple’s System Status page logs the outage from 2:49 p.m. to 4:22 p.m. Pacific time, which is 5:49 p.m. to 7:22 p.m. Eastern. That’s 93 minutes. Find My stayed shaky even longer.

Every affected service is now marked resolved. But if your calendar still looks out of date or a sent email never arrived, the outage may have left a few loose ends on your devices. Here is what Apple logged and what to check.

Apple’s status page lists seven services that went down at the same minute

Apple’s resolved-issue log shows seven services with problems starting at exactly 2:49 p.m. PT and ending at 4:22 p.m. PT. Apple classed six of them as outages and one, iWork for iCloud, as an issue. Find My started a minute later and lasted the longest.

For most of the list, Apple’s note reads, “Some users may have experienced an issue with this service.” For Game Center it says, “Users experienced a problem with Game Center.” For Find My, Apple wrote, “This service may have been slow or unavailable.” Every entry says “some users were affected.” Apple does not give a share or a count, so there’s no official figure for how many people lost access.

Apple hasn’t explained the cause. The same status log also shows a separate, earlier problem. Apple Music and Podcasts had “intermittent issues” on November 9 from 5:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. PT, a five-hour window that also affected only some users.

Losing sign-in and Find My at once hurt more than a broken calendar

A calendar that doesn’t sync for 90 minutes is annoying. Losing iCloud sign-in at the same time is worse, because you can’t fix much when your account won’t authenticate. People posting during the outage reported failed iCloud email and Apple Account sign-ins, and some said they were signed out completely.

Find My was a bigger problem than its “issue” label suggests. For a little over two hours, finding a misplaced iPhone, checking on a family member’s location or tracking an AirTag could have been slow or impossible. If you tried to locate something during that window and got nothing, try again now.

This is the second Apple service outage we have covered in six weeks, after an Apple TV outage in early October left some viewers unable to stream.

If iCloud Mail, Calendar or Contacts still won’t sync, run through Apple’s fixes

Most devices catch up on their own once the servers come back. If yours didn’t, start with Apple’s own sync troubleshooting guide. On iPhone and iPad, Apple recommends these steps:

• Close the Calendar or Contacts app, wait about a minute, then reopen it.
• In Contacts, swipe down on the list to refresh. In Calendar, tap the Calendars tab and swipe down.
• Go to Settings, then Apps, then Calendar, and tap Sync. If All Events is selected, pick a shorter timeframe, or the reverse. Wait a few minutes and refresh again.
• Restart your iPhone or iPad.

On a Mac, open Calendar and choose View, then Refresh Calendars. On iCloud.com, clear your browser cache, or sign out and back in.

For mail, check your Outbox first. Apple’s iCloud Mail guide says a message showing “This message could not be sent. It will remain in your Outbox until it can be sent” is held, not lost. On iPhone, make sure Push is on under Settings, then Apps, then Mail, then Mail Accounts, then Fetch New Data. If mail still won’t flow, Apple suggests turning iCloud Mail off, restarting, and turning it back on. Send yourself a test email to confirm it works.

If you see an “iCloud Data Not Syncing” message, Apple’s support note says to open Settings, look for a badge, tap it and follow the prompts, which may ask you to verify your account. If you were signed out during the outage, this prompt is how you get back in sync. If the message keeps coming back, Apple says to contact Apple Support.