Mail search not working after Big Sur install

Thank you Wayne. That looks like the right place. I've reported on the product feedback > MacOS Mail page.

If others could do similar, that might help prioritise a fix. Strength in numbers and all that :)

I have had the same problem - mail search not working - after installing OS11, Big Sur. But I found a fix!

To be specific, my mail search worked as usual for a day or two after the upgrade, but then stopped working. BTW, my spotlight was working fine, but not finding most mail. Incredibly frustrating, as I search within Mail many times an hour for keywords, names, etc - mostly searching within All Mailboxes. I noticed that mail search was only searching the names of mailboxes, not the content or subject or "to" or "from" of every email. I did check "All Mailboxes", on the left mailbox folder pane (and tried very other folders), but still the Mail search only searched the names of mailboxes....

I have only found this thread with others having the same problem, and I called Apple support (they are to call me back in some hours).

So I figured this out, with help from a YouTube video about the same problem (mail search not working) - but after Catalina install (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCWpJT7NPzc)

The fix: simply, in System Preferences > Internet Accounts > my Gmail account, I de-selected the box checked by Mail, then closed System Preferences to restart and then re-select my Mail in my Gmail account. When I went to close System Preferences after de-selecting Mail, I was led to "security and privacy" window where I was prompted to accept an updrade of sorts. I did not take a screen shot to show... But after that, then restarting and then re-selecting my Mail in my Gmail account, then starting Mail again - it is back to working normal!

I do hope this helps y'all with you fix~

Dave

I hadn't tried. But just did since Mail search stopped working again. Unfortunately, that didn't work for me.

That said, I didn't;t get that security and privacy window you mentioned.

When you say - but after that, then restarting - do you mean restarting your device?

If so, that's my main fix for this. I find simply restarting my MacBook Pro fixes this - for a while at least!

Here is an update on this bug. I spent over an hour with two Apple Tech Support Staffers yesterday. They are puzzled and have shared my computer and gathered diagnostic data to send to the engineers. Last night I thought of a different tactic to try that seemed to work. Instead of restarting my computer, I just logged out of my main user account (the one in which Mail search was not working) and then logged back in. The search function was restored. While this is still a bug it is less annoying and quicker than having to restart my computer each time.

Read this, thought, up down up down left right left right b a start

But I did it and it worked. (fixed for now, maybe)

Possibly a simple restart will do the trick.

shift quit, shift quit, restart, akums razor sometimes.

A comment on this article helped me. The article explained how to rebuild the index for Spotlight search. That did not help me. But the comment suggested using the Activity Monitor to kill all tasks related to Spotlight Search. I closed Mail. Then I searched Activity Monitor for "spotlight" and found 4 tasks. I killed all four. Had to Force Quit two of them. I then re-opened Mail and search worked for me. Hope this helps someone else also.

sadly this didn't do it for me. Mail search is so essential to those of us with lots of organized mailboxes for current and historic data. I sure hope apple finds and kills this glaring bug fast! I really don''t want to read in thunderbird and I file across different imap accounts regularly. Need this to work.

@Gregg Radell

Exactly! I have my email super organized, with lots of folders between accounts. It's essential in order to keep my work organized. And so, I use the search function very regularly because I don't always recall which folder might contain what I'm looking for. And I agree, I don't want to begin using a 3rd party application. I've tried several and I've yet to find one that accomplished Mail's simple interface, ease of use, etc.

I'm yet to find a permanent solution. A restart (of MacBook) can help. And, a mailbox rebuild seems to work for a while.

As another commenter mentioned, it does seem to be affected by other people logging on (if you have multiple laptop users).

Apple reckon there is no bug - but I and others would seem to disagree!

Hi

I had the same problem since the Big Sur upgrade.

Solved it just now by going to Preferences/Spotlight - and Turn OFF spotlight for mail and messages.

Launch mail and voila, searching works again.

hope this helps

Cheers

I do not wish to be negative, but many of us have tried your approach, only to find that some time later Big Sur reverts to the mail search function and Smart Maiboxes misbehaving again.

Please let this discussion know if your solution continues to work over the next few days.

(Do you have several user accounts on your MAC and do you swap accounts regularly ? Do you use the Smart Mailbox features of Mail)

thanks

S.

I'd agree. We need a solution which is reliable, and which works with multiple users on the same device.

I'm also a little loathe to disable other functionality just to get Mail Search to work. That said, if it does sort this permanently, I would be inclined to give it a go!

Here is an update on my interaction with Apple Tech Support. About a week and a half ago I was on the phone and sharing my iMac screen with two of them showing what was wrong and trying their suggestions for fixes, including reinstalling BigSur. Nothing worked. They then asked for a capture of diagnostic data (long process) which I sent them. I heard nothing back. Last Saturday I was called by another tech and spent 2 hours with him. Again capturing diagnostic data which the Apple engineers wanted. They seem stumped so far. I also sent them a link to this discussion thread so they would know I am not a crazy user, that there are several of us with this problem. Right now the quickest fix I have found is to log out of the user account that has the Mail Search problem and log right back in. No need to close the software.

Well, JohnDoe0007, that response from Apple is frustrating since it is an obvious problem that arose with Big Sur. Plus, as my previous message here shows I have spent over 3 hours combined with three different tech support people showing them what happens. I would say, just keep on pestering them.

An added tip: Since this problem only occurs when switching from one user to another and then back, a simple extra step is this: Before switching users, log out of your current user account. Then log in to the next user account. When switching back to the first account by logging in you will find Mail Search works.