Mail search not working after Big Sur install

Thank you Mark, look on page 15 I did the same with a brand new Big Sur system installed on a MacBook that I completed erased first, and I see the same bug.

To be precise, Fast User Switching is when you switch from one user directly to the other user by clicking in the menu bar: in that case the search will continue to work.

What triggers the bug is when you log out of one user and then log in the other user. And if you have only one user on your Mac I believe you never see that bug.

And there are only two ways to recover the search capabilities; reboot, or force kill the 'corespotlightd' process in Activity monitor. Everything else I tried (and trust me I tried everything that is suggested in the 10 discussion threads I am following here) does not fix the problem.

Like you I wish I had never installed Big Sur.

The simple steps are:

• launch the application 'Activity monitor'
• you will see all the processes running on your Mac
• in the search box top right of the window type: 'corespotlightd' without quotes. We are lucky, that search box works !
• click on the process 'corespotlightd' listed, there might be more than one if you have multiple users logged in. Select the one of your user.
• click on the cross button at the top of window, usually the left most, this is used to quit of force quit a process
• a window will appear asking if you really want to do that, click on 'force quit'
• sometimes the process will restart immediately, you barely notice it stopped. It's Ok, no need to do it again.
• check if the search works in Mail. It should work now, if not try again force quitting in Activity monitor. For me it works every single time on first try
• quit 'Activity monitor'
• go to Apple feedback page and file a bug report and tell them how bad they are performing ! https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos.html

APPLEAL, we are far beyond "try search ALL mailboxes", and no, it doesn't predominantly affect gmail accounts !

This bug has been introduced with the original Big Sur, we have tried everything possible (just read the 20 pages), and went as far as trying on a brand new MacBook with only a fresh Big Sur installed and the bug exists also on that minimal configuration.

What we know for sure:

• it happens on Macs with multiple users
• what triggers the bug is one user logging off
• then Mail search does not find anything, and that happens for every other user already logged in
• fast user switching does not trigger the bug
• if you reboot or force kill 'corespotlightd' mail search will work again
• there has been zero feedback from Apple about this, I filed at least 10 bug reports, there are hundreds of messages on this board and no reactions form the 'gurus' you can see on other threads
• what a shame !

I haven't knowingly deleted anything. I did try the procedure shown at the top, deleting something and waiting 24 hours etc. , which did nothing for me. And, I am not a multi-user. I do not switch users.

I do not have anywhere to search apart from "All inboxes". I do not have "on My Mac", other than a header. Hence creating the equivalent "All mail" sorted my problem.

Search now only searches the mailbox, smart or otherwise, that you select. AFAIR, it never used to matter! So, unless you create a smart mailbox to cover mail in all mailboxes, you cannot search "anywhere".

And VIPs are still broken, to me more important than any search.

Hi. A couple of suggestions:

a) try the following procedure (it seems to work for most users with this problem - at least temporarily but then it can easily be repeated):

• Open Activity Monitor
• Identify "corespotlightd" process name (it's possible you may have more than one)
• Stop the "corespotlightd" process(es) using x-icon
• Process will re-start and search should work now

b) Please report this problem at https://www.apple.com/feedback/mail.html [select Bug Report from the Feedback Type popup] This is where Apple expects to get Bug Reports.

Hi.

None here has yet found a permanent fix for this problem.

A couple of suggestions:

a) try the following procedure (it seems to work for most users with this problem - at least temporarily but then it can easily be repeated without restarting - if you find it works for you):

• Open Activity Monitor
• Identify "corespotlightd" process name (it's possible you may have more than one)
• Stop the "corespotlightd" process(es) using x-icon
• Process will re-start and search should work now

b) Please report that you are having this problem at https://www.apple.com/feedback/mail.html [select Bug Report from the Feedback Type popup] This is where Apple expects to get Bug Reports.

Hi, Clara..

We all here share your frustration with this problem.

At this time your "Spotlight Restart" seems to be the method of choice to restore the search function:

-the following procedure (it seems to work for most users with this problem - at least temporarily but then it can easily be repeated):

• Open Activity Monitor
• Identify "corespotlightd" process name (it's possible you may have more than one)
• Stop the "corespotlightd" process(es) using x-icon
• Process will re-start and search should work now

Since Apple doesn't track this particular discussion thread, may I suggest that you also report this problem (and your frustration) at https://www.apple.com/feedback/mail.html [select Bug Report from the Feedback Type popup] This is where Apple expects to get Bug Reports.

Thanks

Good news everyone !

I have just installed 11.3, and now search in Mail returns the expected results as it should, even after logging off another user.

I was able to reproduce this bug since November, and no update to 11.2 corrected it. It took 6 months of pain and working around this nasty bug, I still can't believe it took that long.

For reference, the problem I had (and numerous other users) happened on a multi-user Mac: with multiple users logged in, as soon as one user would log off, Mais search for all the others stopped working and did not return results. Fast switching between users did not trigger that bug. The quick cure was to kill the process corespotlightd in activity monitor, there are several posts in this discussion detailing how to do that.

This is a quick fast post to give hope to all users affected by this bug, let's see if it keeps working all along my workday !😬

Hello, the Mail shift-restart didn't work for me, but a Safe Boot did, so thank you so much - I have been struggling with this for a month and it has driven me mad!

For any technophobe like me, who had to look up what a Safe Boot is, you turn off your laptop, wait 10 seconds then turn it back on again, immediately putting your finger on the Shift button and holding it down until the password box comes up.

Hi, convertedluddite.

Have you tried restarting/killing the "corespotlightd" process? Many people seem to have success when doing the following steps (recovery may be temporary but it's simple enough to do again quickly as needed - especially if you just leave Activity Monitor open)::

• Open Activity Monitor
• Identify "corespotlightd" process name (it's possible you may have more than one)
• Stop the "corespotlightd" process(es) using x-icon
• 
• Process will re-start and search should work now

Since Apple doesn't track this particular discussion thread, may I suggest that you also report this problem (and your frustration) at https://www.apple.com/feedback/mail.html [select Bug Report from the Feedback Type popup] This is where Apple expects to get Bug Reports.

I thought it was broken too and I went so far as to completely wipe my SSD and reinstall from scratch. Turns out, mail changed and you might just be searching wrong. Type what you are looking for in the search box and then look on the left where all your folders and mailboxes are listed in the side bar. At the very top there should be an option for All Mailboxes (it only appears after you have typed into the search field). Click on the All Mailboxes option and there are all the emails you are looking for. At least that is how I got it working for me.

Hi, TrevorGainesville.

Have you tried restarting/killing the "corespotlightd" process? Many people seem to have success when doing the following steps (recovery may be temporary but it's simple enough to do again quickly as needed - especially if you just leave Activity Monitor open)::

• Open Activity Monitor
• Identify "corespotlightd" process name (it's possible you may have more than one)
• Stop the "corespotlightd" process(es) using x-icon
• 
• Process will re-start and search should work now

Since Apple doesn't track this particular discussion thread, may I suggest that you also report this problem (and your frustration) at https://www.apple.com/feedback/mail.html [select Bug Report from the Feedback Type popup] This is where Apple expects to get Bug Reports.

Finally fixed this. Turns out it's a Spotlight glitch. First- Apple recommends you call them. (800) 275-2273 They give free advice on software even if you are out of warranty. Because if you don't know what you are doing you could mess up your computer. Ask them to bump you up to a specialist- the front line help doesn't know how to fix it.

Here are the steps:

Quit Mail

In finder, hold Option key and click the Go menu at the very top left of your screen

Select Library

Select Metadata

Select CoreSpotlight folder

Select all the items in CoreSpotlight Folder and right click to make a new folder with selected items and put new folder with the all the items in CoreSpotlight Folder.

Restart computer. It may take 24 hours to re-index mail but this is the answer! I had to repeat it about 2 weeks after the fix. But it works again. Apple has its engineers working on a permanent fix.

Again- you can seriously mess up your drive if you are a newbie. Call Apple to take you through it. You may not have the exact same problem as me.

So I was having this problem as well and after messing around for a while I seemed to have fixed it but I'm not sure which step was the fix. First things first the problem:

• This was happening on my gmail email address
• Search in email would sometimes show the searched email in the drop down list (sometimes not)
• Clicking on the email would leave the search running indefinitely sometimes finishing sometimes not
• Doing the shift click when opening the email would fix the problem temporarily but it would always come back

There were two things I did that may have fixed the problem:

• I noticed that when I looked at the email logs in connection doctor that there was a lot of recursive searching in the "Important" IMAP folder. This lead me to think this may be messing up the search. I logged into gmail went to settings and turned this folder off. This folder still lives on gmail but does not show up in Apple mail (never used it so not a big deal).
• Around the same time I did this I tried clicking on the mail filter icon on the top left corner of Apple mail (circle with three stacked horizontal lines). I was surprised to see search results. I unclicked it and I still had the results!

I don't even know if either of these things did anything but my mail search has been working well since then (fingers crossed)

Let me know if any of these suggestions helps at all.

Hi, seefilns.

Many people seem to have success when doing the following steps (recovery may be temporary but it's simple enough to do again quickly as needed - especially if you just leave Activity Monitor open)::

• Open Activity Monitor
• Identify "corespotlightd" process name (it's possible you may have more than one)
• Stop the "corespotlightd" process(es) using x-icon
• 
• Process will re-start and search should work now

Since Apple doesn't track this particular discussion thread, may I suggest that you also report this problem (and your frustration) at https://www.apple.com/feedback/mail.html [select Bug Report from the Feedback Type popup] This is where Apple expects to get Bug Reports.