I am unable to get mail search function to work after Big Sur install. After reading some other previous email search content, I closed mail completely, opened with shift+Mail, closed and rebooted and same problem occurring.
iMac, macOS 10.12
I found out something today, I am not sure if this changed with Big Sur but I strongly suspect it may have something to do with it.
Problem:
When you search, it only now seems to search whatever mailbox is selected in the left hand panel. This is usually "All inboxes". This seems to ONLY search mail in the inboxes (as it says!). I have several accounts and I have been searching in "All inboxes" for ever and it always used to (before Big Sur) find mail wherever it was. Whether it searches folders in imap accounts, I haven't proved yet. However, it does not seem to search mailboxes "On My Mac" - mail downloaded, via imap or pop, and then moved from the inbox, by rules or manually, to a mailbox on the hard drive. This, of course, is where most of my saved emails reside so they are never found!
Solution:
Luckily, smart mailboxes seem to ignore location unless specified. We need to refer to the predefined smart mailbox All unread which uses the rule "message is unread". (There is no rule for "message is read"!)
I created a smart mailbox called All mailboxes using rule "not in mailbox All Unread" which correctly selected all read messages, from anywhere! Thousands of emails appeared! When this mailbox is selected my searches work fine! You may have to wait several minutes each time you select All mailboxes for the Mail program to refresh the total at the top. Mine took about two minutes to find 29k!
VIPs
VIPs are the same but cannot be fixed by humble users as far as I can see. Apple, you need to fix this!! Mail will only show a VIP's mail if it is in an inbox and has not been moved to another mailbox!! This is not how it used to work and it is now useless.
I'm not clear on what you mean that you can't select from the dropdown. Do you mean the options are there but you cannot access the options - or that you don't see results?
It works for me. You should be able to select from from, to and all in that dropdown. However, the options will appear in the dropdown, whether there is mail or not.
You're probably already doing this, but to confirm:
If there is more than person with that name / search entry, you will need to select an entry under People first.
The to, from, people dropdown works fine for me - if there is mail in the category. If none apply, you might have no dropdown.
Having a similar issue with a small difference. If I search all the emails from an email address and select ANY instead of FROM I'm able to find all of them however if I use FROM or TO an address in a search the results are only covering the last 2-3 days and then 2019 and down. Almost like that email address never sent an email in 2020 or in the first few months of 2021.
I did update to 11.3.1 and also tried opening with the SHIFT key or force quit the corespotlightd process but the result is still the same.
It worked only one time on my iMac late 2015 with Big Sure 11.5.1
When I tried to search a mail a second time, it returned impressively slow...
I tried every thing without success.
Curiously, the same mail searched with spotlight returns a quick result...
No mai searching problem on my airbook, on the same mailboxes (big sur updated)
I see the same issue. All other folders work fine with TM just not mail. Cannot go back in time to retrieve older emails. I noticed a similar issue using Catalina but Big Sur is worse.
Hey,
these steps helps to me:
Perhaps one fo the best ways to give feedback to Apple is at:
https://www.apple.com/contact/feedback/
I reinstalled and it fixed it for 24 hours or less, but it worked after i rebooted my macbook. Now
Just updated to 11.2 and problem remains the same: when you switch between users you lose Mail search capabilities !
This is a huge atrocious bug, can't believe it is not fixed...
JohnDoe 0007, you can force quit the processes of every user, it will fix the problem for them too. Maybe you need to be an 'admin' user to be able to do it, it worked for me.
Well said.
Have you given that feedback at: https://www.apple.com/feedback/ ?
There you can make these points about just MAIL or the macOS overall.
Hi, seefilms.
Do the "kill corespotlightd" steps restore SEARCH for you?
Thanks,
Wayne
Not having any trouble here, since updating to 11.3
With search word in place try then clicking on the subfolder.
Outstanding! just reloading the search box from customize toolbar did it.
Thanks
Same here. On a MacBook Air, it works fine; on my iMac, it's the same in all accounts. I've tried everything I've seen posted and no luck. Trying reinstalling Big Sur right now. I'll post back if that works.
I think that's a different issue, Cloudiii.
Is there not a magnifying glass icon at the top right of the menu bar?
If not, try going Edit > Find > Mailbox Search.
When I first opened Mail, I thought the search icon was missing, but it just didn't jump out to me.
Other posters seem to be reporting a different issue - searches result in no results following upgrade to macOS Big Sur.
Mail search not working after Big Sur install
