Mail search not working after Big Sur install

One non tech people question. If I reinstall OSX I understand that I need to erase my drive, install the system and then apply a back up from time machine. Wouldn't I be in the same place where I started?

Thanks. I did reinstalled the 2 of my MacBooks with this problem. Result was that for one day both have been searching the way they should, but today, search is already broken.

The information I can add is that both have several users created and using the computer.

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

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.)

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...

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.

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?

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.

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....

Thanks for the suggestion Steve_in_Sb !

I also use a Gmail account and the "show in imap" is checked for me.

Do you say that after that change you can logout from one user and Mail search will continue to work for the other users ?

Thank you RBX1, but it works only until another user logs out, and then mail search breaks again. You gave me hope for a few minutes, but I am sorry to say that reset of the PRAM does not solve the issue.

I am so bothered by the incredible bug that I try everything and anything, and it always happens when a user logs out. I can't believe that losing such a functionality does not generate a huge reaction from users !

Before I discovered all of you having the same bug (and by the way my computer is single user, me) I called Apple Support and they not only couldn't fix the search but acted like this was my isolated case. And in the bargain in their attempt to fix the problem, all my desktop and documents disappeared. Luckily I had them backed up.

It is driving me mad as I need search for my productivity.