Mail search not working after Big Sur install

Interesting Idea.. I re-customized my toolbar to have room for the full search field. Searches still failing (will bring up names that match but once a name is selected no messages are returned (on a contact that I know I have lots of messages from)

Glad it helped you out! Thanks for sharing...

Thanks for reminding me of all the things I have done. :) I have rebuilt the mailboxes too. For now, the fix is going to my MacBook and searching there, and then finding what I want by sorting by date.

I have not however created a new user. It would be the logical thing to do which I have not done. But considering how many others are also having this problem, I am just wondering if it is worth the effort. Also, if something is corrupting a user setting, it could be that it is causing the same corruption for others. I have a quiet day, I will create a new account and test. Thank you for that suggestion.

Probably only a small chance of success. Appreciate that it becomes difficult to remember what you have done.

For those who have had some success, it's not clear if it's the actions or the order they were completed which is key.

Unfortunately, most if not all of the known fixes which 'cure' this problem permanently tend to stop working soon after.

It did seem to be a multi-user problem, although there are some reports that some have multiple accounts but only use one. But that's still a multi-user scenario to me.

Remind me - are you the sole user of the device. And do you have multiple accounts set up?

Nice piece of investigative work which, I think, grinds the problem down to the nub. If we could only find another, more serious, consequence of this bug - like it preventing users subscribing to Apple Music - then maybe we could get Apple's attention.

(The bug will probably be fixed in OS X 12 "Big Profits." I hear that the new OS replaces the bash shell, with the "cash" shell, which uses a $$$$ prompt... )

That's disappointing.

Following upgrade to Big Sur, it's noticeable that many users had to play with settings to get Mail set up correctly.

So, I wonder whether there is a fundamental change to Mail (instead of or in addition to Big Sur OS update) which is impacting.

Have you confirmed - on your new build - that continually using fast switching between accounts consistently retains search?

Yes, using fast switching retains search, on the new build and on my older iMac fully loaded also. The two machines behave exactly the same ! and force quitting 'corespotlightd' works also on the new build to restore search capabilities.

Thank you.

After encouraging others to log off, I probably need to change tack and say user fast user switching all the time.

Not sure why the 'helpful' button is greyed out in this Apple community now. Noticed recently that I only have the reply option.

Fast user switching works for me, I never lose search. Then when I log off my 'work' identity in the evening the bug happens.

Don't understand either why the helpful button is greyed out, it works in some other threads I visited. With 21000 views this topic is in the top three of issues after double display and installation problems... looks like we are not alone !

Do you log out of the other user accounts, or do they stay logged in when you switch? The problem seems to occur when a second logged in account is logged out of. At that point the first logged in account loses the mail search.

Me too re greyed-out Helpful button.

I have a Mac mini M1 running BigSur 11.2

Logging off when switching from the secondary account takes out the mail search every time. Force quitting corspotlightd brings it back every time.

Mail search results also disappear and reappear in the main spotlight search results in exactly the same way.

I can live with quitting corespotlightd - this would drive me insane otherwise, so sympathy to those of you for whom that doesn't work!

I can confirm that it's not fixed in 11.2.1. Behaviour remains exactly the same:

Just one user = no problem

Additional user(s) log in = no problem

Additional user(s) log(s) out = mail search f**ked for all remaining users

Great.

There is one 'corespotlightd' process per user, you see them all listed in the window of activity monitor. I don't know the under the hood stuff either, but I find it strange that a bug can affect the indexing of multiple users.

In any case, it is happening and killing that process fixes the problem.

One question for you multiple users system, are the different users using the same Apple ID or different ones ?

Has anybody tried this:

1 Log in as primary user. Test mail search works.

2 Additionally log in as secondary user. Test mail search works.

3 Log out as secondary user. Check that mail search is broken for primary user.

4 Log back in as secondary user. Is mail search working for secondary user? Is mail search still broken for primary user?

Does this provide any additional useful information?

I haven't done that test.

But I have found that if I force quit the core spotlightd process just for the secondary user that doesn't help.

It's only quitting core spotlightd for the primary user which temporarily fixes the problem (from very limited testing).

It’s still buggy, I updated as well and had to rebuild the mailboxes. Emails are quite fundamental feature and you can’t keep improving old software forever as the core software is changing over the time. It becomes increasingly more difficult and inefficient. At some point you have to severe the cord and start by creating new code base suited for the current setup. Mail app is overdue and Apple should start from the ground up. I don’t trust the mail app in search results. If I am looking for an email over a year old and don’t remember the subject line of it, I go straight to gmail where the search is powered by AI and results are always found. Apple search and email indexing isn’t the best. I am looking for new email client at the moment....