Mail search not working after Big Sur install

The remove-add search in customize toolbar did the trick. I don't understand why Apple hasn't fixed it by now. Maybe there are just too many bugs in the so-called upgrade of the OS.

Delete the mail account and re-install it. It worked perfectly for me!!!

Mail - Accounts - Click on - (minus).

Dear All

Re: Mail search not working for Big Sur

I tried without success : re-installing Big Sur; closing /opening the mail; closing /starting the Mac

What it worked for me was reconfiguring the "customise touch bar" (i.e. opening the "customise touch bar" and adding the 'search function').

Thank you for all the advise and help

Best Regards

Xela

Having just accepted the update from Big Slur 11.1 to 11.2, I can confirm that logging in as another user still breaks search in Mail. Killing corespotlightd and letting it respawn still fixes it too.

Would killing the the Apple developers who're sitting around with their fingers up their bottoms and letting them respawn (ie employ some new ones) fix it too? Perhaps they'll get their fingers out by 11.3?

You've perhaps already tried it and you mention you read the forums. But have you tried force quitting 'corespotlightd' in Activity Monitor. That works for me reliably.

Edit - and you don't specifically list

Restart your Mac

This also works for me. Also I find it less convenient. You don't need to log out of your mail account though and search works afterwards. Your mileage may vary.

Yes, using fast switching retains search, on the new build and on my older iMac fully loaded also. The two machines behave exactly the same ! and force quitting 'corespotlightd' works also on the new build to restore search capabilities.

There is one 'corespotlightd' process per user, you see them all listed in the window of activity monitor. I don't know the under the hood stuff either, but I find it strange that a bug can affect the indexing of multiple users.

In any case, it is happening and killing that process fixes the problem.

One question for you multiple users system, are the different users using the same Apple ID or different ones ?

That's strange, as while for me the bug with search is annoying, Apple Mail search is really good when it does work.

And I just need to force quit that corespotlightd process to resolve the issue.

I find that search is quick and picks up all emails with the search term.

For example, I just rang a search for 'buggy' and it picked up not just a notification about your post above, but also tech emails about buggy performance as well as an email from years ago about a buggy/pushchair. This was within less than 1 second.

How many emails do you have in your mailboxes?

I did an email search across 2 mailboxes and it searches all folders and subfolders almost instantaneously. I need to so some mail housekeeping too.

I also use Fast User Switching, and experience this bug. But here is another bit of info. I rebooted a day or two ago,

but switched back and forth between two users on my iMac Big Sur system (possibly logging out of one at some point).

In any event, something triggered the problem: search in MacOS Mail failed. As an alternative, I downloaded Spike, and tried it. I got a warning that I needed to check "Show in IMAP" for "All Mail" in the web based Gmail settings (labels).

Did that, read a few messages in Spike, returned to MacOS Mail; search now works.

Then something is really wrong, but it must be happening to you only unfortunately.

You could create another user just for testing, launch Mail in that user space and make two or three accounts to see if Mail behaves differently. If it is the case you know the problem is not unsolvable... and it is easy to delete the test user afterwards.

That was my problem, it would only search the inboxes and most of my mail has been removed from there.

Try this: create a smart mailbox with rules "Not in mailbox" "All unread" and select that before you search.

It works for me.

Lately I spend all my precious work time trying to fix my mac can I bill apple for this?

Had the disappearing mail problem transferring junk to inbox - deleted all accounts and reinstalled to fix

Now search won't find things that I know are in my mailbox.

Finally fixed by reindexing Spotlight Restart Spotlight https://www.macobserver.com/tips/how-to/fixing-broken-mail-search-

macos/

Seriously can't Apple make a stable operating system anymore - this is why I switched from Microsoft - might have to go back.

Each update seems to get worse and worse

After struggling whit this issue for 2+ months, the only solution actually worked for me was to create a new user on my MAC and transfer all the files to it.

Even better, restore the mac to factory settings, create a new user and configure your email accounts from scratch. It's a lot of work and take time, but will solve the search problem for good.

Apologies - I intended to link to JohnDoe0007's earlier suggestion.

Quitting mail, logging off, then restarting the MacBookPro worked for me.

Deleting the indexes, which causes a rebuild has fixed this for me (per early post) - no probs in the last week or so with searching.