cloud.microsoft: Microsoft’s new top-level domain

To cite Microsoft’s announcement, “cloud.microsoft is the new unified domain for Microsoft 365 apps and services.” It promises greater security and a unified experience. Sounds wonderful. However, you might prefer some solid facts, like which services have already migrated to this top-level domain and how cloud.microsoft will actually affect us. Read on to learn more.

What is cloud.microsoft?

cloud.microsoft is a new(ish) top-level domain owned by Microsoft. And yes, there’s no .com after microsoft. At the moment, “cloud.microsoft” on its own redirects to m365.cloud.microsoft, which is Microsoft 365 Copilot – a sort of dashboard for Microsoft 365 users.

Microsoft introduced the cloud.microsoft domain on the Microsoft 365 Blog. The domain was provisioned and announced in early 2023.

The part that immediately caught my attention was the word cloud added to the initial announcement:

Source: Microsoft 365 Blog (link a few lines above)

The list of URLs that could potentially be affected was considerable, to say the least. Fortunately, the word cloud was generated based on fairly liberal criteria. Most of the URLs shown there haven’t been migrated to the cloud.microsoft domain. At least not yet.

Can you imagine how many websites and apps would have to be updated if, for example, linkedin.com suddenly became linkedin.cloud.microsoft? Redirects don’t always work, especially when deep URLs are involved.

 So, the most pressing question for now is: what’s already moved?

What’s moving to cloud.microsoft?

First and foremost, microsoft.com is not going away. The cloud.microsoft domain is reserved for user-facing Microsoft 365 experiences.

First services to be hosted in the new domain are brand new services. That’s why you can already see an abundance of Viva modules moved to cloud.microsoft. The rest will be moved at a slower pace to minimize any potential impact.

Impact of introducing cloud.microsoft

The official statement suggests that no action is required as:

1. *.cloud.microsoft has been added to the official list of Microsoft 365 URLs and IP ranges.
2. The old service URLs will automatically redirect to new locations.

However, there are some real consequences that do call for action.

1. For companies that use smart hosts, firewalls and heavy Internet traffic control, adding exceptions for *.cloud.microsoft is a must.
2. I don’t expect people to read Microsoft’s blogs too often. That’s why it will probably be your (admin’s) task to increase awareness. If you train your users to spot email phishing attempts that link to “microsott.com” or “rnicrosoft.com” instead of microsoft.com (as you should), then expect them to get super nervous when they spot that Outlook opens with a brand-new address shown in the address bar. To prevent unnecessary tickets and general panic attacks, educate.
3. Whether you create Microsoft 365 related content to make admin’s life easier (you know, kind of an admin’s blog, or something like that) or just have a thousand user training documents, you’ll need to update your content. I know there will be redirects from the ‘old’ URLs, but:
   • There’s no guarantee the redirs will work forever. Call me glass-half-empty kind of person, but I’m almost certain that at least some of them will stop working at some point. And even if redirects work fine, what about deep links, like Teams deep links?
   • You want your content to be or, at least, seem to be up-to-date. Old links suggest that your content might not have been revisited in a while. It’s a bit like still writing ‘Office 365’ instead of ‘Microsoft 365’, or ‘Azure AD’ instead of ‘Entra ID’. Even though most people know what you’re talking about, they might have some doubts.
   • Redirects put users (and some tools as well) on their toes. Better to update before it happens.
4. Occasional bugs might crop up. For example, I ran into an issue that didn’t let me edit Integrated Apps in the new Microsoft admin center, while the old admin center handled the same task like a charm. That’s why, if something doesn’t work, you can use my list of old and new URLs for troubleshooting in your organization.

So, if you need to know what exactly changes and what’s the progress on introducing cloud.microsoft domain in production, look below for a list of changes.

List of services on cloud.microsoft

Below, I’m listing all the cloud.microsoft-related updates I’ve found.

Redirects and new services

That’s the list of services that have been successfully migrated to cloud.microsoft + their old URLs that are currently redirected. The question marks mean that the service was deployed to the new namespace right from the start. Or that I haven’t come across the previous URL.

By the way, did you know that Viva Goals, a solution from the sizeable Viva suite, will not live to see the year 2026? If you’re using Viva Goals in your organization, you should start planning your data export and looking for alternatives.

Also, while insights.viva.office.com is successfully redirected to the cloud.microsoft domain, viva.office.com seems suspiciously uninhabited. When I try to visit it, it returns an error:

Side by side

There are services which currently operate side-by-side, both on their old URLs and the new ones. Here’s the list:

Last modified on June 2, 2025

It’s worth noting that, currently, the only admin centers available under the new Microsoft top-level domain are the Microsoft 365 admin center and the Exchange admin center (although the second one’s URL format is, in my opinion, a bit awkward). The rest, like the Teams admin center, are still in the microsoft.com namespace.

Don’t get me started on the rebrand from “Microsoft 365 app” to “Microsoft 365 Copilot app”. The name will probably evolve into something new not before long anyway.

Trivia

Now some cloud.microsoft trivia I found unexpected:

1. Copilot. copilot.microsoft.com and copilot.cloud.microsoft not only coexist but also represent different resources.
2. With Viva it’s quite different – it’s viva.cloud.microsoft for the user-facing service and viva.microsoft.com for the marketing part.
3. Teams. teams.microsoft is redirected to teams.microsoft.com, instead of the cloud.microsoft domain. Just wondering why not to the newer location. Similarly, outlook.microsoft bounces you to outlook.office.com.
4. Strangely, tasks.microsoft.com is redirected to outlook.office365.com/mail.
5. book.ms – the original link for Microsoft Bookings, redirects to outlook.office.com/bookings. Its newer, “cloud.microsoft” version: outlook.cloud.microsoft/bookings is available, but it’s not the default and sometimes it doesn’t even work in my demo tenant.
6. Word, Excel and PowerPoint for the web are currently available under two different URLs. Interestingly, the two services have a different layout. The difference is mostly visual, but that’s not the only change. For example, the old experience lets you see more documents with the following tabs: All, Recently opened, Shared and Favorites. The new experience shows only Recent files.

What’s the future of brand TLDs?

Microsoft regularly updates the list of services migrated to cloud.microsoft and announces these updates in the Message Center. It seems that all user-facing services will be, at some point, moved to the new domain. In short, we can see that Microsoft continues to actively use its brand top-level domain (TLD). But what about others?

Using the brand name as the top-level domain isn’t new (*.google, *.apple and *.amazon are only a few of examples), but still, the majority of Internet users expects dotcom rather than ‘dotbrand’ websites.

However, since a tech giant like Microsoft not only applied for, but also started using their own brand TLD, it is possible that the subject will gain a bit more interest.

There are a few things to know about brand TLDs:

• They are a type of generic TLD (gTLD), which is a bit different from standard “dotcom” domain. One of the biggest differences is that you need to apply for a gTLD during a specific timeframe. The next window is expected to open in April 2026.
• You need a registered trademark to apply for a brand TLD.
• The process is quite complex and costly.

In other words, you have to jump through some hoops if you want your own brand TLD. But there is an upside – the risk of domain hunting is much lower. And ultimately, a brand TLD used effectively can be good for building trust, which is a universal currency.

See also:

Microsoft 365 Copilot explained by an admin, for other admins

Microsoft Viva explained: part 1 & part 2.