Mail search not working after Big Sur install

Thank you __gabe__ , that did the trick, however is not permanent fix. I am forced to do this several times per week unfortunately. I can't believe that Apple would not test such critical component before the release. I hope they can deliver fix for this. I always had issues with the search functionality of Apple Mail even if it was working, the indexing is not very good. 50% of the time I was looking for some old email, nothing was returned, or emails not related. I had to go to GMAIL directly, used the same keywords and the first result was a match. Many times. I thought that the email just didn't exist in the Apple Mail mailbox, but when I used exact Subject text, it was found. I would never remember exact subject of an email even a few days old. Google and Salesforce are using AI powered search and it works brilliantly, Apple should really improve the search in general...not just the bug in BigSur

Perhaps if you were an early adopter, and went straight from Catalina to Big Sur 11.0, upgrading to 11.1 might fix it. I hung back however, and then went straight from Catalina to Big Sur 11.1. That's when the problem started, so an upgrade to 11.1 won't fix it for me... and there might be quite a few others like me here.

Having just accepted the update from Big Slur 11.1 to 11.2, I can confirm that logging in as another user still breaks search in Mail. Killing corespotlightd and letting it respawn still fixes it too.

Would killing the the Apple developers who're sitting around with their fingers up their bottoms and letting them respawn (ie employ some new ones) fix it too? Perhaps they'll get their fingers out by 11.3?

This is insane. After being literally unable to work without going to either gmail web or iCloud web (which also has very limited search functionality - no global search only on a selected mailbox) I couldn't take it anymore. I've stuck with Mac mail since its inception and through many hiccups but this one is intolerable. After 11.1 failed to fix it I had to do something to get my workflow back (lots and lots of mailbox folders, searching all the time).

I am not promoting any product here. I just want to tell other frustrated users that I stared using the the postbox product. It definitely took some acclimation and a few days to adjust and learn its intricacies, but I am searching up mail no problem now and actually enjoying some features that should have been in Apple Mail a long time ago. The news that 11.2 did not fix this does not surprise me, but it does disappoint me tremendously. I mean, if the company makes one software product that would be essential for every computer they ship, that would be mail (and a browser of course). Shame. Unbelievable. As a user I am deeply disappointed and frustrated. As a shareholder I am concerned about whats going on with Apple QC.

Again, I have no affiliation with the mail app I mentioned, just thought some of you might find some respite from this horrible situation. Not free but it was worth the money to get back to searching mail contents without cringing.

I can also confirm the same detailed behaviour as GanawaGangunawa. It's not the logging in of any additional users that breaks it. It's when any of them log out.

How much detailed information does Apple require from us before they fix this?

(Now this is a keyboard, and this is called a "mouse." When you move the mouse, look what happens to that little pointer... and when you press the keyboard keys letters come out.. and look at all those pretty colours too... )

It may come as a revelation, but some of us actually want to do some work on these machines, and not just

play with the desktop background, look at pictures and play music. (Pretty rad, I know.)

It must have to do something with multiple accounts on Mac. When I stay signed in using only one of my accounts, after rebuilding the mailboxes it seems to work. But when I sign into the work account it’s time to rebuild the mailboxes and shift+open and quit the app several times and restart. Then it works...for a while. When I sign back to the personal account, sometimes it works, but sometimes I have to go through the workaround again.

I think best way for apple is to scrap this buggy app and start from scratch, deliver new app completely, powered with AI as other email clients do. I tried quite few email clients due to the nature of my work and Apple Mail is in the last third of the list for me. Not really good and friendly product that would fit to 2021 market

I'm sorry to tell you all that it can not be a multi-user issue. I have three accounts on my machine. One is me, one is guest (can't get rid of that I think), and one is apple support. I am always and only logged in as ME, it is my machine and not shared. Yet I still have this Mail bug problem since moving to Big Sur.

I hope that might help some you to know. I never log out of my user account, I do reboot occasionally and log back into same account. The search just does not work in mail.

I agree the app should be rebuilt from scratch, and they should take a long hard look at features from other mail apps while doing so. But in the meantime, they need to make search functional in mail.

Thank you Gregg, interesting feedback on the multi-user. All the Mac users I know that are single users don't see the bug, this is why I thought only multi users are affected, as we can see here on the forum.

I plan to wipe our my second Mac and rebuild it from scratch to see at what moment the bug appears, I cannot believe every Mac user is affected, it must be something else...

I agree that it's strange that you get this issue when only you ever log on.

I set up a separate account for Apple a while ago and kept it.

I also have a guest account. But neither of those have been used recently.

However, the fact that you have 3 accounts on your machine, might be part of the problem.

I realise that others have suggested it's linked to other users logging in. And I have to say that my experience and testing suggests this is a possible cause.

I believe that the Mac might log you out automatically when you reboot.

Do you see the Mail issue if you have not rebooted?

When I have had the problem, restarting my Mac is one possible fix.

However, when you restart, surely it advises that you have programs open - unless you already closed everything?

So, I reckon that if you restart, you would be logged out of Mail and logged out of your user account.

You have to log on again when you restart, don't you?

And you have the choice of reopening previously opened apps - assuming you didn't bother to close apps...

It is strange however that you never log into the other accounts and still get the problem - especially as restarting usually fixes the problem for me.

How do you fix the problem when it occurs? Have you tried force quitting the corespotlightd process which seems to work for most/all.

I have tried pretty much every fix on this thread and none of them have helped me. If I kill corespotlightd it continuously respawns. No matter how many times I kill it and Jump to mail i still have broken search. Restarts do not fix it for me, whether mail is left open to be auto started on restart or closed and manually launched after restart. toggling mail and message in spotlight prefs had no result for me. There was random time or two since big sur was installed that mail search worked for a moment and then immediately stopped working.

I hope some of that helps. I just couldn't work like this anymore so got settled in to an alternative mail reader but I am following this thread closely for indications it is safe to return to mail.app.

Do you force quit corespotlightd?

You may have to delete your search from the field and try again. Make sure all mailboxes are selected after re-entering the search term.

I've always found that force quitting that process works. It will respawn as you put it though. That's expected behaviour.

You've perhaps already tried it and you mention you read the forums. But have you tried force quitting 'corespotlightd' in Activity Monitor. That works for me reliably.

Edit - and you don't specifically list

Restart your Mac

This also works for me. Also I find it less convenient. You don't need to log out of your mail account though and search works afterwards. Your mileage may vary.

Yes, several re-starts, not to mention a full reinstall would do that.

Also, yes to force killing corespotlightd which kills itself with each reboot anyway. But also have done it without a restart from Activity Monitor.

Yes, I realise that restarting will also kill that process. I just find it easier to force quit than restart.

You've already covered so many options that I would be wondering if it was a different underlying problem with your iMac.

I see you already deleted and reinstalled Mail accounts, but you might want to try a mail rebuild. That might take a while to run.

I did that at one point and seemed to work - although it was only a temporary solution. But it might be the missing link.

Other than that - and some possible glitch with your machine - I am a bit stumped.

The only other thing you might want to consider is creating another user on your iMac and setting up mail on that dummy account. Possibly create mail accounts separately to rule out a particular account being the issue. That might help see if there is something corrupt with your user account. Might be a remote possibility but probably worth a go?

Agree with failure of items on the list when tried on my MacBook Pro.

That said, however, one day (after having exhausted the list and resigned myself to the "sign out of userIDs, sign back in" method to restore) a miracle occurred and searches seem to be regularly working now.

That said, one of the other things that did happen along the way is that I got a "wide" monitor. This has allowed me to expand the window I have open for MAIL. [Someone early in this discussion mentioned it seemed somehow related to the "search bar".]

Previous to my wider monitor my MAIL window showed a placeholder for "Move to..." and just the magnifying glass for "Search". To do a search I needed to click on the magnifying glass to expand the search bar. With my wider monitor and (now) wider MAIL window I regularly have a wide SEARCH field showing so that when I want to search I just click in the search field; no need to click on the magnifying glass first.

Can't guarantee this is "the miracle" that fixed my search..... I'd be very surprised if the width of my window makes search work... can't even say they happened around the same time..... but it's the only other change I've made.