Techniques for automated datastore unavailability handling are provided. In one set of embodiments, a computer system can receive a request to bring a datastore offline and, in response to the request, identify one or more virtual machines (VMs) in a virtualized computing environment that have one or more virtual disks stored in the datastore. The computer system can then, for each of the one or more VMs, determine an action to be taken with respect to the VM in response to the datastore's unavailability and trigger execution of the action.