Mail search not working after Big Sur install

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.

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 !

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.

Hello Everyone,

I just updated to 11.2.2 and I am sorry to report that nothing changed for us, the infamous MUMS Multi-User Mail Search bug is still there, and bugging as expected !

Must be a seriously difficult fix, it's been a few months already...😖

Interesting MsFjordstone, it must be a small subset of single user system experiencing this, as there are not many complains... were you able to determine what triggers the bug ?

Does reboot of force killing the 'corespotlightd' process temporarily fix the problem ?

Agreed, the multiple user theme seemed to be a common factor.

It would be useful to confirm whether any single users have more than one user account set up. I recall that at least one single user actually had multiple user accounts on their device - so there was still a link.

If others are single users with only one user account, then that could be a different story - or perhaps a different issue...

It's been a week since the last issue happened for me with the mail search and now it is returning values. The question is, how good are the results. I commented earlier in the chain that even if Apple Mail did work, most of the times when I search for something, it can't find it. When I'll go to the native email client - Google, I get immediate results. Below is an example from today's search, where some unrelated results were returned by the Apple Mail whilst typing the word "Dum", but once finished as "Dumpboss", it couldn't find anything. I am looking for an invoice here. When I went to Gmail and typed the same word, it shows all interactions . Here's my answer to whoever was replying to me earlier that he never had issues with finding emails - I do all the time....

APPLE MAIL SEARCH:

GMAIL:

You can trust the Mail app, but I don't. It is better if Apple will start from scratch and deliver A.I. powered mailbox that is easy to use. I'll even pay for using it! You can't keep fixing old code as the whole platform underneath is evolving, at some point you have to draw the line with the patches and start fresh!

Good luck!

corespotlightd:

...distilled from:

• Core Spotlight framework provides ability to label and manage persistent user data like photos, contacts, and purchased items in the on-device index
• Core Spotlight APIs don’t make items publicly searchable. Instead, Core Spotlight enables you to make items searchable in the user's private, on-device index, the contents of which is never shared with Apple or synced between devices
• corespotlightd: process that keeps this information updated. Information itself is stored in user's on-device index

Perhaps.

However, Apple has set up information and discussion forums for developers (developer.apple.com), for users (discussions.apple.com), and others as well as providing a way of submitting bug reports (https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos.html), At the moment, the latter is where Apple is looking for bug reports (and feature suggestions, by the way). So, if a bug report is left here, don't be surprised if "Apple" doesn't see it.

To JLewisH, here is how the search works for me (when it is not broken): if i click on "All Mailboxes" and type in the search box, Mail will search everywhere and find results wherever they are in any sub mailbox or even in the mail stored in 'on my Mac'.

If I then click on a mailbox, what is in the search field will be searched (and found !) only in that particular mailbox and it's sub mailboxes.

This is how it worked for years and what happens for me now on my two Macs.

It looks like you have something else wrong in your system, time for a clean install...😫

Do you have other user accounts on your device?

Does that fix the problem permanently? Even if other users log in?

Most people seem to have problems when another user logs in. This causes the bug to reappear.

I'm glad, too.

Not exactly sure what I did to make it work except that refrain from logging out completely.... I have multiple users but consistently use "Login Window...." rather than actually logging out a user through "Fast User Switching":

https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/mac-help/mchlp2439/mac

Occasionally I restart my MacBook but restarting is one of the (more time consuming) ways to get Mail Search working.

Hi, seefilms.

Glad to hear it's making things better for you. It seems to have helped quite a few others, too.

You'll need to repeat the steps only IF you lose the ability to SEARCH. Then a quick trip into ACTIVITY MONITOR, kill the process(es), and you're on your way again.

Have a good day,

Wayne

You might want to look at smart mailboxes. You can create a virtual folder containing emails perhaps based on specific words. You could have all the emails in your mailbox(es), and use smart folders instead of manually moving emails to folders.

I don't use subfolders in Apple Mail. However I find that the search works fine across mailboxes and the various main folders.

Not sure why it doesn't for you - or whether this is by design, or you need to change your method.

Maybe someone with a similar setup could test out your current scenario.

Might be worth raising a support ticket with apple if still not sorted.

They will be able to go through troubleshooting steps and do diagnostics if needed.

I and many others are finding mail search reliable since upgrading to latest OS.