Video-chatting service returns for users on April 16

You may be able to skip your next meeting. Zoom appears to be down for many.

Users began reporting outages on the popular video conferencing platform to Downdetector.com midday on April 16, according to the website. Reports of outages peaked at 3 p.m. ET, but remained high an hour later.

Harvard University IT’s account on X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter, posted a note saying, “Zoom has confirmed that this outage is impacting all Zoom customers. They are working to investigate and remediate the root cause and will update us on their progress.”

HUIT went on to recommend the use of Microsoft Teams for videoconferencing.

Some of the pages on Zoom’s website were inaccessible and the company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. However, just before 5 p.m. ET, Zoom posted on X: “Service has now been restored after the earlier outage, and we sincerely appreciate your patience and understanding.”

Many other users had also gone to X to declare they couldn’t get onto the platform. “Thoughts and prayers to all of the assistants that are currently getting yelled at by their bosses because #Zoom is down,” posted one user.

Earlier on April 16, music streaming service Spotify had an outage, too.

This story has been updated with new information.

Mike Snider is a reporter on USA TODAY’s Trending team. You can follow him on Threads, Bluesky, X and email him at mikegsnider  &  @mikegsnider.bsky.social  &  @mikesnider & msnider@usatoday.com

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