Search not working in Monterey

So grateful, Bike-turkey - your fix of re-indexing the hard drive on Spotlight worked for me! I had migrated over from a 2015 Mac with Catalina to the new M1 Macbook Pro and thought at first it was an Outlook issue (I still run "old" Outlook, as I use an Exchange server for one email account and can't afford to have issues there, as mentioned previously on this board), but this board helped me see my search issue in both Outlook and File Finder was actually the SAME issue, not 2 issues: the Spotlight bug in Monterey. I did what you suggested above (go to System Preferences-Spotlight-Privacy, add hard drive to area not searched, then remove it), rebooting in between the adding of my hard drive to search exclusion (as you did) and removing it, then made sure my computer stayed out of sleep mode for at least an hour overnight to rebuild the index. This morning my life is MUCH better.

FYI, Microsoft support has a thread up that says Monterey 12.1 fixes the problem - https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/search-in-outlook-for-mac-returns-no-results-after-installing-macos-monterey-12-1-075c5f09-35db-4205-aba3-eea2f168c71b - this was NOT true for me. Also, as with folks above, I was running Outlook 16.57, and my system said I was up to date, so I couldn't easily get my hands on 16.58 to try that possible fix. So glad I tried this first. Hope Apple fixes it SOON. How frustrating.

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support

but the solution seems to need that you add + to "privacy" the entire disk of your mac (Macintosh HD), not only the root of your user.

And then remove the disk from the list with -

It worked for me.

I have found a solution. The macbook must reindex your harddisk! see : https://www.techradar.com/how-to/software/operating-systems/how-to-fix-a-mac-s-broken-find-function-1298964

It can take a while (sometimes hours) but it works.

Start by opening your System Preferences, then select Spotlight. Click on the privacy tab. Here you'll see any private locations that aren't going to be searched when you use the Find command or run a Spotlight search.

Though it might seem counterintuitive, drag the icon for your hard drive(s) onto the list — or, if you'd prefer, just drag over any specific folders that you think aren't being searched. Once you've done that, click the folders or hard drives you just added, then hit the minus button to remove them from the list, which will cause their contents to be re-added to the search index.

The reindexing process can potentially take a long time (several hours) depending on how many files you have, but once it's done, your searching capabilities should be restored.

It worked for me! (but I reindexed the complete harddisk (Macinthos HD)

Good luck!

OK, got mine working. Although I think others may have tried this and it didn't work. In my case finder search only worked for "this mac" and not for any specific folder. I tried various things (as per my previous post) and the following appears to have worked:

Go to Settings, Spotlight, Privacy. Add the whole 'Macintosh HD' to the privacy options. Ignore the message about apps not being able to search. Close settings, reboot. Now in my case I happened to leave it for an hour or more after reboot. Later I went back to the same Spotlight setting and removed Macintosh HD. After this I was able to search in a folder, pretty much immediately, with the right results. "This Mac" and folder searches now working OK in Finder.

But will it work for you...?

same problem here but finally found what works for me. I reindexed, I removed my account and added it again, I even migrated my laptop all over again and nothing. Finally what worked was to reindex the entire hard drive. I spent 2 long days trying to get this figured out.

1.Make sure outlook is closed, click on apple icon>system preferences>spotlight>click on privacy tab

2.then add "Macintosh HD" to the list by either dragging it or clicking the + button

3.close the window and restart computer.

4.go back to click on apple icon>system preferences>spotlight>click on privacy tab and select Macintosh HD and hit the -minus button to remove it.

5.leave laptop on for about an hour, make sure it doesn't turn off and hopefully it works for you like it did me.

I am using MBPro 16" Monterey 12.0.1 M1max chip 16.55 version outlook. and I kept the old outlook, not the new one.

I had the issue and was able to resolve with a refresh of Spotlight. The steps are:

• Open system preferences
• Select Spotlight
• Click on Privacy
• Click the + sign
• Navigate to and select the "Macintosh HD"
• Close system preferences
• Then reopen system preferences
• Select Spotlight
• Click on Privacy
• Click the - sign
• Select "Macintosh HD"

This will begin a reindex of the entire machine and should restore your email search in Outlook. This may take a bit to complete, but should resolve the problem. Don't expect immediate results - this may take several hours before it is fully indexed.

I personally have a new 14" M1 Max MacBook Pro and some recent emails were available in search right away. The rest took about an hour to be available. Hope this helps!

Here is your solution to Outlook search not working.

Preferences> Spotlight > Privacy. Add your entire "Macintosh HD" into the privacy area (by clicking the +). Restart your computer. Once computer reboots, reverse what you did above (Take the Macintosh HD out of Spotlight>Privacy). After about an hour, (you can monitor the progress by just clicking the spotlight and typing anything) your computer's and Outlook's search function will be completely restored.

Who's your buddy?

I had the same problem on my 2022 MacBook pro, M1 Max but I just solved it.

Open system preferences.

Open Spotlight.

Click On privacy.

Add hard drive to window (prevent spotlight from searching these locations).

Close window

Reboot.

Now repeat the above but remove hard drive from the window (prevent spotlight from searching these locations)

Hey Presto, it should work but if not, reboot.

I understand it reindexes the drive. It might take a while if you have a lot on it.

Good luck.

Aaaand I found this, which appears to be working:

https://nektony.com/how-to/rebuild-spotlight-index#reindex_spotlight_with_terminal

Copy and paste the following command into the Terminal window and click the Return key.

sudo mdutil -i on /

the answer was:

Indexing enabled. 

I rebooted, leaving Terminal running, and got

The default interactive shell is now zsh.

To update your account to use zsh, please run `chsh -s /bin/zsh`.

For more details, please visit https://support.apple.com/kb/HT208050.

I hit command-spacebar and tried a search, and the "Indexing" bar is now active, for the first time since I started trying to get this to work.

As to whether I can search strings, I'll find out after the indexing is completed. But at least it's re-indexing now.

It may be that most people have solved this now. I had the same problem, with my new Mac (Dec 2021) iOS Monterey 12.0.1.

I just saw the update for Monterey 12.2 today, Jan 27, and it fixed my search problem in Finder. I don't know about Outlook, as I don't use it.

Figured something out ... I wondered what would happen if I re-organized the files in the location I was having search problems. I had seen that searches in other directories worked OK. The directory having the problem contained close to 16,000 files but many were in subfolders - probably on the order of half of them were in subfolders and, in rare cases, some were two-deep in subfolders. First I split the contents as they were into 6 large subfolders, thinking the issue might have been sheer numbers. That made no difference - still nothing returned in filename string searches. I then flattened all the file structures by placing the files directly under each of their respective 6 large subfolders. That worked. Searches are now returning correct results within each of those 6 subfolders. Also, I tried searches on the top folder (the one that contains the 6 large subfolders). Those searches are working correctly also. So I'm a little baffled as to why nothing worked before. My next step will be to combine all the files in the 6 subfolders into the top folder, making the structure flat. If there is a scaling issue, that should show it. In any case, after attempting many of the fixes suggested with indexing, this re-org of the files appears to have fixed the issue. And I did not force any re-indexing. But perhaps that happened on its own when the files were moved out of the original numerous subfolders. Anyway, it's fixed the searches both locally and remotely from an SMB share.

I found that update the OS to Monterrey 12.1 fixes the Spotlight search "No Results" problem. I have MacBook Pro 14 inch 2021.

For Outlook, searching email only works when you switch to New Outlook (top right). This has not been fixed by updating the OS but it may still work as I have a big inbox and it may still be indexing since the update earlier today. I'll update here if it does.

I can confirm that Monterey update 12.2 fixed the search issues for me with finder/spotlight and in MS Outlook.

In the Finder Preferences > Advanced panel, change When performing a search: [ Search the Current Folder ]. Now, in addition to This Mac, you will see the current folder location to the right of it in double quotes. Below, I am in ~/Desktop/Metadata:

toddwhitlock wrote:

Having first thought it was an issue with Office products and not being able to search one drive, Outlook, etc it became clear it was not limited to those folders.

In finder or within an application it will only search "this Mac" if you move to any other folder including documents it finds no results. No folder is in the spotlight "privacy" setting that would prevent it from indexing and being searched via spotlight or within finer.

This is on a brand new MacBook Pro shipped end of Oct.

Anyone have a fix?

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support