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.
Same for me , still have an outstanding case logged with apple support from beginning of December despite them taking a number of data dumps from my MacBook air M1 to see what the problem is - anyway this has worked for me.
To fix this, try resetting your NVRAM or PRAM to restore the default preferences on macOS.
Now, restart your computer normally and try to use the Mail app again to check if the search function is working properly.
Try going to 'View', then 'Customise Toolbar' and drag the 'Search' icon from the 'default toolbar' to the head of your custom toolbar list. You should then have a search field in which to enter your address. 'Search' now seems to be working for me (fingers crossed!).
Update 11.2.3 is available !
Don't get too excited though, it does not solve the problem for me, the bug is still happening. Force killing 'corespotlightd' still fixes it.
Looks like no one cares about this at Apple, this problem is more than 3 months old, 100% reproducible and no communication, no solution, no consideration for customers. Sad.
Hi, Keren240.
Please report this problem at https://www.apple.com/feedback/mail.html. and select "Bug Report" for the feedback type. You could even just copy and paste your post here since it concisely describes the problem you're having.
This area is a user discussion forum rarely checked by Apple a it's for 'users helping users".
The more people reporting this bug at the above link the louder the problem will sound directly with Apple..
Thanks.
Hi,
As per the advice from Gabe previously -
I tried this and it worked - enabling searching again.
Well, it does kill the process but "corespotlightd" is automatically restarted again by the operating system. That's what's supposed to happen. "corespotlightd" won't disappear forever because of this auto-restart. [NOTE: when you first go looking, you may have more than one "corespotlightd" process running. Check the PID column and make sure you kill both of them and don't end up killing the same process twice - or how ever many you have running.]
...but that's the intended behaviour: killing the process and letting it auto-restart can - for some people - restore the search capabilities. YMMV, sorry.
As you see, this process is quick so, if it works for you but SEARCH begins failing again,, just repeat.
FYI:
"corespotlightd": https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/what-is-process-corespotlightd.2187256/
In any case, 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...... if you haven't already done so
Thanks.
Wayne
I clicked on the "all mailboxes" in the SEARCH field on top of all my
mailboxes and can find them all. now, a PITA but they are all there.
You can't select from, to, or all in the dropdown search field, but at least it works...
I have to admit I never saw that or knew that that field ever existed.....
I had the issue that search would not search.
I did rebuild and resync accounts - no improvement
I also followed the above advice on opening with shift key - no improvement
SUCCESS!
I cannot find it anymore to give credit, but someone posted some advice which was to right click (control click) on the toolbar and go to customise. In customise you can remove the search textbox by dragging it to the pane of options and it puffs away - then drag it back again.
After this everything worked.
I think the person who posted this fix correctly suggested that just because the search box is there, it might not really be.
Thank you whoever you are!
My recommendation is to try the re-adding of the search box first. If that fails, resync and rebuild, close the app and start with shift, close again and reboot. The re-add the search box just in case one of those steps is also necessary.
I tried the Quit Shift Open, Quit Shift Open Restart thing .... didn't work for me.
Tried removing search window from toolbar..... didn't work for me.
Didn't reinstall OS BUT DID run OS upgrade to 11.61 from 11.4 AND ... IT WORKED!
Now search working in Mac Mail.
Happy Days!
I had the same problem but Safe Boot and restart resolved it.
I don't see anything relevant in filters either.
Instead, open Activity Monitor
search for corespotlightd in the process list (use search if you want)
quit that process
Now retry search - working?
Going to Activity Monitor and force quitting the corespotlightd process did the trick. Thanks!
By far the simplest remedy is to use the Activity Monitor utility to kill corespotlightd. I am relaying this info thanks to a post by Ganawa.
Have you updated to the last version of Big Sur ? version 11.3 or 11.3.1 fixed the problem of search completely for me, and I suffered it from the beginning of Big Sur.
This comment https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252035294?answerId=255479196022#255479196022 later in this post has the answer to try first. This fixed our issue after try a few others.
Mail search not working after Big Sur install
