Since upgrading to Big Sur, when I type in a name in Mac Mail to look up a recipient, the lookup of the name takes noticeably longer to start making suggestions. Somewhere around 3-5 seconds. Catalina was almost instantaneous.
Is there anything I can do to fix this?
MacBook Pro Retina
Hello schveiguy2,
Welcome to Apple Support Communities!
If we understand your post correctly, since upgrading to Big Sur the search field in Apple Mail is slow to respond. We're happy to help!
Let's try an SMC reset.
How to reset the SMC of your Mac
You may also want to try an NVRAM reset.
Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac
We also recommend starting in safe mode. Sometimes just starting in this mode and then restarting can resolve issues like this: How to use safe mode on your Mac
You can also create another user on your Mac and test to see if you experience the same issue.
Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac
Let us know if you have any questions.
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Take care!
If we understand your post correctly, since upgrading to Big Sur the search field in Apple Mail is slow to respond. We're happy to help!
No, it's not the general search. It's when composing an email, and I start typing in a name. Let's say the name is "Joseph S". I might type "Jo" and in previous versions of Mac Mail, this would instantly start pulling up names from my contacts including those letters. In Big Sur Mac Mail, it takes at least 3 seconds to bring up the list.
I will try these things later, right now I can't as I use my Mac for work. But I wanted to make sure you understand that this isn't searching through all of my mail, it just should be searching my contacts.
While in Apple Mail >> top Menu >> Window >> look for Previous Recipients >> Now choose which ones to keep and ones to remove. There could be 100s depending on your email activity. Some may also be from persons / companies already in Contacts App and others are not. Should speed up the process when composing a message
A reboot fixed the issue. Not sure why.
Mac mail takes a long time to look up a name
