Spotlight and mail notes

Question

Level 1

27 points

Spotlight and mail notes

Hi all.
Is there a way of getting spotlight to index the notes within Mail? I've got lots of notes, with lots of info, but spotlight doesn't seem to index them, or at least report any results from them. My iPhone spotlight reports them, but not my Mac. Any ideas?
Thanks,
John

MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.6.2), Mail 4.2

Posted on Feb 22, 2010 12:37 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

musicwind95

Level 4

1,282 points

Feb 22, 2010 4:48 AM in response to jcbigears

Make sure that any relevent items are not checked in Spotlight's exclude. Do you get any results when you search in Mail itself?

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Answer 2

jcbigears Author

Level 1

27 points

Feb 22, 2010 9:54 AM in response to musicwind95

Hi.
Yes, searching within mail itself yields results. Strange, huh? Within spotlight preferences, there's no option to search for notes. The option for mail is selected. I've only deselected music and fonts.
Any other thoughts? Should there be an option to search for notes?
Thanks,
John

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Answer 3

Feb 22, 2010 5:32 PM in response to jcbigears

Notes show up for me in Spotlight under Messages...

Try a repair disk on Macintosh HD.

Next, try adding Macintosh HD to Spotlight's exceptions list. I'd log out/in, and then remove it. Wait for Spotlight to re-index the drive.

If that doesn't work, then try the commands here that V.K. and baltwo have posted. See if those help. Basically, you're going to wipe your Spotlight index and have it re-index the drive.

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Answer 4

jcbigears Author

Level 1

27 points

Feb 22, 2010 8:10 PM in response to musicwind95

Hello, and thanks for your advice. I've tried what you suggested to no avail. Unfortunately the link you sent me doesn't seem to work - it only redirects me back to this discussion. Would you be so kind as to send it again, perhaps in HTML format?
Kind regards,
john

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Answer 5

Feb 23, 2010 4:19 AM in response to jcbigears

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=11010067&#11010067

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Answer 6

jcbigears Author

Level 1

27 points

Feb 23, 2010 9:43 AM in response to musicwind95

Thank you, but they just seem to add the hard drive to the exceptions list, don't they?

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Answer 7

Feb 23, 2010 11:39 AM in response to jcbigears

Those commands directly remove the Spotlight index and rebuild them, as far as I know. But that is what you should try doing, one way or another.

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Answer 8

jcbigears Author

Level 1

27 points

Feb 23, 2010 9:09 PM in response to musicwind95

Thanks.
Didn't work entirely. The notes are now indexed, but appear as emails. The are listed as emails received from me, with the title in a lighter font indicating what they actually are. the don't have the note icon. Do they have the note icon in your spotlight? When searching from within mail, though, they appear with note icons.
John

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Answer 9

Feb 24, 2010 4:22 AM in response to jcbigears

For me, in the main Spotlight menu they appear as emails. There is no note icon for me.

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Answer 10

jcbigears Author

Level 1

27 points

Feb 24, 2010 9:50 AM in response to musicwind95

Thank you.
At least I found them!
John

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