macOS Calendar (Sierra 10.12.6, MBA) Search only shows results for 3 calendars

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8 points

macOS Calendar (Sierra 10.12.6, MBA) Search only shows results for 3 calendars

I've had this problem recently, over the last few weeks: when I search the Calendar by keyword, it only shows results for 3 calendars -- when I actually have 20 calendars. It looks like only Phone Calls, a Quicken-connected calendar, and a subscribed holiday calendar show up in search results. These are not the most important calendars that I'm looking for.

I've tried reindexing Spotlight by putting Macintosh HD into the Spotlight Privacy pane, closing System Preferences, reopening System Preferences, and then removing Macintosh HD from the Privacy pane. Spotlight seemed to reindex, but I still can't get proper search results from my Calendar application.

If I search the Calendar with ' . ' (a "period") in the search field, I get results only for the same 3 calendars, when the result should be everything in my calendar.

All calendars are sync'ed with iCloud.

Search works fine on my iPhone calendar app running iOS 13.3.1.

I'm not sure what else to try, other than clearing the Calendar cache, but I'm hesitant to do that because I have years worth of appointments that I don't want to mess up, even with a good backup or exported Calendar Archive, for safety.

Any suggestions would be welcome, thanks!

MacBook Air 13", macOS 10.12

Posted on Feb 12, 2020 7:58 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

scottmk Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 18, 2020 10:06 PM in response to sterling r

Becky, Trece, and Sterling,

It looks like it's fixed, which is a relief as it appears that I have full Calendar search functionality again.

I followed the instructions in this article:

https://wilkinsit.ca/mac-osx/clear-calendar-cache-mac-os/

on clearing the Calendar Cache files, and everything came back to normal as Spotlight was reindexing, and after the reindexing was complete.

Thank you all for your suggestions and for following up with my issue.

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Answer 2

raina_b22

Community Specialist

Feb 15, 2020 1:27 PM in response to scottmk

Hello scottmk,

Welcome to Apple Support Communities! I understand some of your iCloud calendars aren't showing on your Mac. I'm happy to assist you with this.

Let's quit the Calendar app and restart the Mac first: Quit apps on Mac - Apple Support

How to turn your Mac on or off - Apple Support

Next, see if the calendars show up in safe mode: Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac - Apple Support

Uncheck calendars and check it again in your iCloud preferences by navigating to System Preferences > Apple ID > iCloud > (uncheck/recheck) Calendar.

Best Regards.

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Answer 3

Feb 18, 2020 3:27 PM in response to scottmk

Hello again scottmk,

Thanks for the additional details. Let's continue to isolate the cause of this issue. Create a new user account and add some of the calendars. After adding the calendars, see if the same issue occurs in this user account. This will determine if the issue is system-wide or user specific:

How to test an issue in another user account on your Mac - Apple Support

If the issue doesn't work in the new user account, try removing the calendars and add them back in your user account: Add or delete calendars on Mac

Cheers.

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Answer 4

scottmk Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 18, 2020 2:20 PM in response to raina_b22

Hi, Becky.

Thank you very much for the reply and please accept my apologies for the delay in getting back to you.

I think you misunderstood my issue. My 20 calendars all show up in the Calendar application (v. 9.0, 2155.21) on my MBA. All of my data is present and viewable, I can toggle individual calendars on and off and on again, and they come and go as expected.

The problem that I've been having increasingly over the last month or so is that when I do a search from the search box in the upper right of the Calendar application, in most cases it returns "No Results". Search only returns results for these calendars: Phone Calls, my Quicken-linked calendar, and a Holiday calendar. No results appear for my other calendars.

The search feature is broken and unusable on my MBA. I can still search on my iOS devices, and all calendars are appearing in the iCloud.com calendar.

I tried booting into Safe Mode, but then the Calendar Search feature did not work at all, it did not return any results for any search fields.

I tried reindexing Spotlight for the entire Macintosh HD, but that didn't fix it. It seems as though the index for Calendar entries is not connected properly to the Search feature, if that makes any sense? Is there a way to reindex the Calendar for search purposes?

Thank you again.

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Answer 5

scottmk Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 18, 2020 3:22 PM in response to scottmk

Becky,

I just tried clearing the Calendar cache files (Calendar Cache, Calendar Cache-shm, Calendar Cache-wal) by deleting them and letting macOS recreate them, but that has not affected the broken search feature.

Thanks again.

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Answer 6

scottmk Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 18, 2020 3:31 PM in response to scottmk

Becky,

Re: the previous message, it appears that Spotlight is now reindexing and calendar entries are beginning to show up in searches within the Calendar application. I'll follow-up and let you know if this ends up fixing the problem...or not. Hopefully, it will take care of it.

Thanks.

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