Apple Mail does not find messages with a given subject

Question

Apple Mail does not find messages with a given subject

Mac Pro (Late 2013) running Big Sur (11.3.1) I am trying to find all emails whose subject contains SS1809 . I type exactly that in the search bar and select "All Mailboxes" on the left. It returns nothing. So I find the folder in which I expect mails with such a subject and sort by subject and see about a dozen emails beginning with precisely that string. Then I start typing and after typing the single character S it finds 0 results. If I select that mailbox before searching, then start typing it finds a handful of messages with SS in their subjects but ONLY in folders "Deleted Messages" and "Recovered Messages". I have tried restarting, starting Mail with the shift key held down (as was recommended in some old conversations, turning Spotlight's searching off and on from the command line in Terminal.

Totally broken. Richard

Mac Pro, macOS 11.3

Posted on May 29, 2021 1:14 PM

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Answer 1

VikingOSX

Level 10

124,652 points

May 30, 2021 2:00 PM in response to RichardLockhart

If you have chosen Mail & Messages search result category in the System Preferences > Spotlight > Search Results panel, you can perform a Spotlight case-insensitive search for all emails with a specific string in their subject field — outside of Mail.

kind:mail subject:ss1809

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Answer 2

Jun 3, 2021 1:23 PM in response to RichardLockhart

I have used mdutil to fix the problem, actively forcing Spotlight to reindex the whole volume. It now finds mail files and Mail finds them too. Still waiting for indexing to finish.

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Answer 3

chuck_3rd

Community Specialist

May 30, 2021 1:48 PM in response to RichardLockhart

Hey there, and welcome to Apple Support Communities, RichardLockhart!

We see that you're having some issues with searching Mail. We'll be happy to see how we can help. If searching doesn’t find the right emails in Mail on Mac can help with what to do for this issue. Let us know if that helps.

Cheers.

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Answer 4

May 30, 2021 4:17 PM in response to VikingOSX

Mail and Messages is check in that panel but Spotlight finds nothing. Indeed it finds nothing from any active mail account. Moreover, the web suggests that my mail files ought to be in ~/Library/Mail/V14 but ~/Library/Mail contains only the folders V2 and V8. Apple mail sees the mail and I can read all the Gbytes of mail but Spotlight doesn't even find things in my inbox. It finds things in "Deleted Messages" only. I tried to get Spotlight to reindex but that seems to have done nothing.

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Answer 5

May 30, 2021 4:27 PM in response to chuck_3rd

I have checked all those things listed there. None of them help. Where are email messages stored on my Mac in Big Sur? Spotlight can find messages after 2016 only in a very few mail boxes including those which show up with a red flag in the top bar -- not sure if those are stored in a different spot

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Apple Mail does not find messages with a given subject

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