My Outlook.com mailbox refuses to open in the browser, stuck on the loading spinner or showing Something went wrong. The same account works fine on my phone.
Chrome on Windows 10. What breaks a webmail that works everywhere else?
Outlook.com error when opening: mailbox will not load in browser
Solved Email & Outlook
MS
Michael Scofield August 24, 2019
2 replies
7,240 views
Reviewed by moderators
The phone working narrows it immediately: the account and the service are healthy, the problem lives in that browser's stored state for the site. Work through these, fastest first:
1
Test in a private window: Ctrl+Shift+N in Chrome, sign in to outlook.live.com. Loading fine there proves the point, since private mode ignores stored cookies and site data.
2
Clear the site's stored data specifically rather than nuking everything: in Chrome open Settings, Privacy and security, Third-party cookies, See all site data, search live.com and remove those entries. Sign in fresh.
3
Extensions next if the private window also failed: ad blockers and privacy extensions mangle Outlook.com's scripts regularly. Disable them for the site or test with all extensions off via a fresh Chrome profile.
4
Still stuck, check the service itself at portal.office.com service health or a status site, and try another browser entirely. A different browser working while Chrome fails after steps one to three means a damaged Chrome profile, worth rebuilding.
One recurring specific: corporate machines with SSL inspection or aggressive antivirus web filtering break Outlook.com's long lived connections, showing exactly the endless spinner you describe. If this is a work laptop and the private window changed nothing, that filtering layer is the prime suspect and IT can allowlist the Outlook domains.
Private window loaded instantly, cleared the live.com cookies and normal Chrome works again. Weeks of using my phone for nothing.