You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

User profile for user: Mik B
Mik B Author
User level: Level 1
31 points

Apple Mail can't find new messages, smart mailboxes don't work, Spotlight rebuilds changes nada

In macOS 10.12.6 with Mail 10.3 suddenly I can't find messages, nor do Smart Mailboxes work. I've rebuilt Spotlight multiple times, rebooted the system, but nothing seems to make it work inside Mail.


When I search in Spotlight in the menu bar or in Finder though also recent messages show up, though I'm not sure search results are complete. Actually, I get results even as I just added my drive to the ignore list in Spotlight preferences. I haven't seen that before.


Any ideas?

MacBook Pro 15", macOS 10.12

Posted on Dec 8, 2019 2:05 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply
User profile for user: Mik B
Mik B Author
User level: Level 1
31 points

Posted on Dec 9, 2019 3:21 AM

OK, so turns out I had a buildup of false volumes in "/Volumes" This is something macOS sometimes do when it can't get to a mounted volume, it creates a new fake one, then fails to handle this. This happens very seldom though. It's the first time this affects the internal drive.


After I had deleted the false volumes, carefully ejecting external disks first and making sure the internal was the internal and not the false one, I proceeded with deleting the Spotlight index in Terminal: 

sudo mdutil -E /


Then I removed my internal drive from the Spotlight prevention list in System Preferences and four hours later my complete Spotlight index have been rebuilt. Had to turn off Virus scanning as it was interfering with file access and taking up valuable CPU time.


Likely I got partial results as the false internal drive had a partial index also when I had prevented the internal disk. Fixed. I really gonna need that index the coming days.

View in context

Similar questions

1 reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply
User profile for user: Mik B
Mik B Author
User level: Level 1
31 points

Dec 9, 2019 3:21 AM in response to Mik B

OK, so turns out I had a buildup of false volumes in "/Volumes" This is something macOS sometimes do when it can't get to a mounted volume, it creates a new fake one, then fails to handle this. This happens very seldom though. It's the first time this affects the internal drive.


After I had deleted the false volumes, carefully ejecting external disks first and making sure the internal was the internal and not the false one, I proceeded with deleting the Spotlight index in Terminal: 

sudo mdutil -E /


Then I removed my internal drive from the Spotlight prevention list in System Preferences and four hours later my complete Spotlight index have been rebuilt. Had to turn off Virus scanning as it was interfering with file access and taking up valuable CPU time.


Likely I got partial results as the false internal drive had a partial index also when I had prevented the internal disk. Fixed. I really gonna need that index the coming days.

Reply

Apple Mail can't find new messages, smart mailboxes don't work, Spotlight rebuilds changes nada

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.
Learn more Sign up