Search not working in Monterey

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

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.

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 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!

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:

the only solution i got to fixing the search function in outlook for my macbook pro 14" is to activate the "new outlook". had to give up on the old outlook version since the first day of the year is always the most hectic for work

This is what I have in Outlook for Mac Version 16.56 (21121100). You can switch back to the old the same way:

Strangely when I check for updates within Outlook I am told I'm up to date - which I am happy about because I much prefer the old Outlook and only switch to new to search emails.

I encountered a similar problem, maybe it is related.

After updating to Monterey my finder search actions does not activate the text input field for entering the search criteria. I have to manually click the field in order to enter some text. Then I found that that is not the case when you have the desktop as your selected location (just click on your desktop to deselect the active window). Then finder will search in the top most (opened but inactive) window and activate the search input field. I can not believe that that is the intended mode of operation, so I think we need to hope for a swift update.

I have rebuilt the index to no avail as well.

However, if I search in Finder, it finds the files with the messages in the Outlook profile folder which means that everything is fine with the index.

I reckon that Apple has changed something in SpotLight integration in Monterey, so we have to wait an update from Microsoft.

I have a similar problem on my MacBook Pro, 16-inch, 2019. For a long time I have used the "Search the Current Folder" setting in Finder. Now, I recently upgraded from Catalina to Monterey. The upgrade went smoothly on my machine. Ever since the upgrade Finder gives me all the results on this Mac... even though I have "Search the Current Folder" selected in Finder, Preferences. I have switched back and forth from search "This Mac" to "Current Folder"... and I get the same results in all folders on my Mac. I also rebuilt the file Index in System Preferences, Spotlight. No change. I am still looking for a way to fix this, and hoping Apple has a solution.

I had the issue that when I searched in the finder (cmd F) the input field didn't activate in the active window. But when I clicked on the desktop, then that search field was active and the search was focussed on the top most (inactive) window.

It turned out the issue was caused by the (in the past) altered toolbar. When I reset the toolbar, all was fixed. Maybe that's the solution for all of you as well.

Just adding that I’m having the same issue. Brand new 16” MPB. Search will occasionally work after a reboot but then stop. Or it will find a handful of files when searching by content but none by filename. I’ve rebuilt the index a few times. Really, really, really annoying. I’ve had to resort to using a third-party search app.

I’m having the same issues. Outlook and office won’t search. I can do the same search on prior Mac or iPhone , and it works fine. Two different email addresses. Re-indexed. Deleted and recreated accounts. Still doesn’t work.

I have a similar problem. Brand new MacBook Pro 16 inch, running Monterey. I used migration assistant of my files from my old 2016 MacBook Pro on the weekend. Spotlight is working after checking privacy but in Outlook I cannot search my emails ... Spotlight can see the emails ... Very annoying .. in interactions with Microsoft overnight they suggested installing and reinstalling Office .. has anyone tried this ?

From Microsoft: "To re-confirm, may I know if Outlook migrated using the migration assistance tool? If so, let's uninstall and re-install the complete Office suite on this device and check if it resolves the search issue. Before you uninstall the applications, please take a backup of the below mentioned folder. Quit Outlook completely. On the Finder menu bar click "Go", click "Library". Then go to "Group Containers" folder. Find the "UBF8T346G9.Office" folder, copy this and paste it on to the desktop. Note that you have to copy and put it to desktop as a backup. Once done, please refer to the following articles to uninstall and re-install Office suites.

Uninstall Office for Mac: https://support.office.com/en-US/article/uninstall-office-for-mac-eefa1199-5b58-43af-8a3d-b73dc1a8cae3

Reinstall Office for Mac: https://support.office.com/en-US/article/download-and-install-or-reinstall-office-365-or-office-2019-on-a-pc-or-mac-4414eaaf-0478-48be-9c42-23adc4716658#InstallSteps=Install_on_a_Mac

I will wait for your reply. Thanks."

As anyone had any success with this ? It only seems to create a clean slate for Outlook ..

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!