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OS Catalina - Mail Search Not Working

anyone having issues typing in something in search and not finding the emails with that search? Instead you get (Found 1400 matches for search) but the emails associated with that search don't show up like it used to. This is so frustrating...

Posted on Oct 13, 2019 9:04 PM

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13 replies

Oct 16, 2019 1:31 PM in response to coreyfromstockton

I chat with Apple and the problem solved.

  1. I created new account for login and checked if the problem consists.
  2. Then I re-started my MacBook Pro in safe mode. Just hold shift+control+Option buttons all together when you see apple sign on your screen after it switched of and re-starting
  3. Check you mail search, if it works
  4. Just go back and re-start in normal mode
  5. and Voila! You are all set.

This is what happened to my mail.

Oct 16, 2019 9:21 AM in response to coreyfromstockton

I have the exact same problem. I type something in, It tells me the 408 found with a status of "Searching..." but the window never shows the results. Hard to work like this...lol. I tried this suggestion (see below) from other posts but no luck. I called Apple Support and they started taking me down the path of creating a new user on my machine but I'm not ready to go down that path.


1) Launch the Terminal.app (Just copy/paste the string starting with sudo.... and press return)

2) Stop Spotlight and remove the indexing: # sudo mdutil -i off -E / <return>

3) Enable it again by typing: # sudo mdutil -i on / <return>

Oct 21, 2019 2:45 PM in response to coreyfromstockton

this process finally works.. but only for a little while then I have to do safe mode again, do the steps above restart and it works.. then later in the day, I can't search again, so I have to repeat this process... man this is a joke.. I should have never updated.. I'm glad I haven't upgraded my other mac's, I'd be screwed.. hope there's a fix soon


Oct 29, 2019 10:56 AM in response to coreyfromstockton

happened samething to me, not just mail, samething with notes app too.

If Mail app could not search , try open the note, samething you couldnt search in notes app as well

I have to restart and a while it stop working again.

I did rebuild and reset everything but samething..

This is crazy...very inconvenient if you have thousands email to search and look up for daily task and work..


any solution?

OS Catalina - Mail Search Not Working

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