Mail for MacOS - search and flags

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8 points

Mail for MacOS - search and flags

Hi,

I recently installed OS 11 Big Sur (currently Version 11.2.3 (20D91)) on a Macbook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014) and have discovered a few issues when using Mail. Two in particular I haven't been able to fix:

1) When selecting 'Flagged' Mail no longer filters our only those messages that have been flagged. I can see all seven different colours of flag with the customised labels I created, and the messages themselves are flagged appropriately. But clicking 'Flagged' or any of the custom flags has no effect - I still see all of the messages in all my mailboxes, rather than filtering out everything other than flagged messages as before, which makes searching for such messages much harder!

2) The 'search' facility (which was fairly unreliable before) is now apparently useless - anything I search for - email address, name, subject line, keyword etc - returns 'Found 0 results' - even if, for example, I search for the address from which I last received a message. Again, of course this makes searching for messages much harder!

Any help very gratefully received thanks!

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 11.2

Posted on Apr 6, 2021 6:27 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

ryane77

Community Specialist

Apr 7, 2021 7:55 AM in response to HughGardens

Hello Hugh,

It sounds like you are experencing issues flagging and searching for Mail. We understand how important this is to you and we are here to help.

Since you mentioned you just installed macOS, it is possible your device is still indexing. If some time has passed and the issue persists, you can rebuild your mailbox using this article: Rebuild mailboxes in Mail on Mac

If the issue persists can you provide a few more details? How long has it been since you upgraded macOS? Are you experiencing this issue with multiple user accounts? Also, which accounts to you have set up in Mail?

Cheers!

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Answer 2

HughGardens Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 7, 2021 8:11 AM in response to ryane77

Thanks for your reply, much appreciated!

I installed Big Sur around ten days ago; my computer is on (in use or asleep but with 'wake for network access' enabled) 24/7 and Mail is open and in use most of the time I'm working i.e. 9-5, Mon-Fri. I was experiencing the issues described in my previous message until earlier today but...

I have just closed Mail, restarted, and reopened Mail again, and both issues (flags and search) now seem to have been resolved so I guess it was just that I needed to give it a while for the mailboxes to rebuild, but also that a restart was required(?).

In case it's of use to others, I use Mail to manage 4 mailboxes: iCloud (there by default but unused), Gmail, a 50GB Exchange 2019 Mailbox, and a regular POP/IMAP account. Altogether there are over 40K messages across the four inboxes which might explain why it took a while for all the features to start working again(?).

Again, thanks for your help with this - A properly functioning Mail is really important for my work!

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Answer 3

MoonJ.

Community Specialist

Apr 7, 2021 8:47 AM in response to HughGardens

Hugh,

We are glad it is now working as expected.

Take care!

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Mail for MacOS - search and flags

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