MacOS Big Sur Mail indexing

Jeff,

I got an answer to my (and presumably, your) issue earlier today on the MacRumors forum, which blessedly appears to have fixed my problem... and it was a lot easier than the fix Apple Support gave to you.

I reposted it on this similar thread (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252045190?answerId=253959059022) just a bit ago, but will also paste it below right now.

Cheers!

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1. Save your work and close all of your apps

2. Close Mail app

3. Hold the Shift key and open the Mail app

4. Close the Mail app (don't search or perform any other actions)

5. Hold the Shift key and open the Mail app (repeat of Step 3)

6. Close the Mail app (repeat of Step 4)

7. Restart your Mac

8. Open Mail app like you normally would

9. Try searching your mail

It is a serious bug in Big Sur. It happens on multi-user systems when one user logs out, the search is broken for all other users. It does not happen when you use fast switching, but when one user logs out, 100% of the time every other user loses search in Mail.

I erased my MacBook and installed a clean Big Sur, with two users and no other piece of software and I see the bug every time. The 'shift trick' or deleting files end envelopes, reindexing spotlight or deleting files in the metadata folder does nothing for me unfortunately.

You can fix the problem temporarily by force killing the process 'corespotlightd' in Activity Monitor, the search will work gain immediately and until another user logs out 🥶

Stupide huge unbelievable bug, happening since the first release of Big Sur months ago !

Please report to Apple using the feedback page, it looks that this is all we can do.

Feedback - Mail - Apple

Feedback - macOS - Apple

Logout & login doesn't do the job for me ! it's either reboot or force killing the process 'corespotlightd' as described here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252035294?answerId=254781667022#254781667022

I was able to fix my mail problem by using the “rebuild” option in the native mail app. It wipes the mailbox and downloads all the email from he server.

This solved it for me:

1. Quit Mail
2. Library/Metadata/CoreSpotlight
3. Delete everything in the CoreSpotlight folder, but not the folder itseld
4. Empty Trash
5. Launch Mail
6. Wait 24 hours, with Mac on

After a call with Apple support, it appears that my "spam Sieve" or bundler was causd=sing the problem for me. If your using an added spam protectors it may be the problem. My VIPs are now correct and search is no longer a problem.

Reboot is only thing that works for me as well.

Responding to Eastdog's note: Nov 23, 2020 9:44 PM in response to jeffpodraza

Instead of a restart, logout & login will also do the job!

Unfortunately this only works temporary after a few days I am back to square one and need to repeat the above procedure.

You are right. Apologies. I now also needed to reboot the mac to the desired result.

Rob

Here's the fix that worked for me:

Delete the files I mentioned above. Then with Mail running WAIT 24 hours without putting your Mac to Sleep OR logging in as another user.

If you log in as another user, even if you are still logged in as the user related to the Mail app issue, indexing will stop, and it does not continue again when you switch users.

Hi, you say"worked for me" but how long have you waited to see if the fix holds? I see your post above and sounds like the fixes didn't last long. the only thing working for me so far is a restart on a daily basis....

Killing the corespotlightd process did nothing for me. It just restarted itself immediately. Deleted it again and tried to search before it restarted but still to no avail. Also tried deleting corespotlightService. Same (nil) result.

Apple, I want my VIPs back! It is taking me ten times longer to find anything, and sometimes I cannot find it at all. I have had to set up smart mailboxes for my VIPs and that seems to work - but I shouldn't have to!

Yes, I tried Spark to read my mail but that only works for the imap files. Most of my mail files are on my hard drive. Can any other mail program read them?? I guess not.

This solution only works for a short period of time for me. Not sure how long because I have not measured it, but I am experiencing daily failures of the Mail Search function. This is extraordinarily frustrating. #Apple.