Search not working in Monterey

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.

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 ..

Ok -I was just on the phone with a wonderful Apple support lady (I asked to be escalated from Tier one support). In Outlook - we converted to the "New" Outlook. There is a toggle at the top of your screen. It did not take long. I did have to force quit Outlook, but the Search of Emails is now working.

The New Outlook looks a little different, but I'm just happy to have the ability to search.

Hi!

Just have installed beta version of MS Outlook v16.57 - and searching is working fine. So you have an option - update to this beta or wait for GA (general availability).

Also, some details from Microsoft side - 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

HTH.

The most recent upgrade to outlook 16.57 (22011101) has made it so I can search mail again using the old outlook - this fixes the original problem -- will still need to see what happens with new outlook and exchange - but for now I recommend latest update to your mac outlook as the best solution

you should be patient. Exclude the harddrive. Exit the system pref and open again and than remove the harddrive from the list.

And wait, wait and wait.

Outllook for Mac 16.58 (22010406) finally fixed the problem.

I just went to the apple icon, ‘about this Mac’, and clicked software updates and 12.2 was there.

I have had similar problems with Spotlight since updating to Monterey.

I have isolated my problems to external SSD drives.

If I have no external SSD drives attached, Spotlight and Finder searches work as normal.

If I attach an old external 5T hard drive, search still works.

Monterey seems to have trouble with SSDs.

Before updating to Monterey 12.1, I could not format new 4T Sandisk SSDs to APFS. Now I can.

It's great that we're all coming together on this but I suspect that we're talking about 2 separate problems: The first with spotlight and the second with Outlook.

I can confirm that the privacy trick described many times above works when the problem is that outlook emails are not being included within the spotlight index.

But, where the problem is search not working within outlook, the solution is different. For those that are able to put up with the limitations of the new Outlook UI, I can confirm that for me the new UI fixes the search. Given that the new UI is still not (after how many months and years???) feature complete, you may not be able to migrate. ...in which case I can't find a solution yet!

for context: I have new 16" MacBook running Monterey, with a 'from scratch' install with no migration.

From my research (Spotlight), this is an issue regarding the quarantine flag on sandbox apps (TextEdit, Pages), and the problem is specifically with Monterey. In another thread, someone said that they were told verbally that Apple is aware of the problem and working on it – sorry to be so vague, but there's no documented evidence, just word-of-mouth.

This article was helpful in understanding the problem: https://eclecticlight.co/2019/05/03/serious-flaw-in-macos-quarantine-can-stop-you-from-opening-documents/

I was one of the posters who had no apparent success with re-indexing. I suspect the fix actually is a re-index, but some of us had to go to great lengths to get an index rebuild to actually happen. In my case I had performed the 'privacy, reboot, remove from privacy and another reboot' sequence without any luck. I had to do a massive re-org of the file folder configuration and that, it seems, finally successfully triggered a full index rebuild. At least that's what I saw on my system. No doubt details in our different configurations affect this process, factors we did not mention but did cause us to see different apparent results.

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

Just worked through this with my campus Mac specialist and had similar discussion with genius bar folks -- bottom line, if you are using an exchange server and mac outlook with Monterey 12.1 you cannot get the search to work -- the new outlook does not support exchange, the old outlook doesn't work w/MS's new search technique (no longer using spotlight)

One useful workaround -- your spotlight will still search your mail -- so if you use spotlight and type whatever you were looking for (say a user name) - then in the list of all files you will find all the mails -- it's a pain in the butt, but works for what it can

meanwhile both MS and Mac folks says "fix is coming" ... so keep your eye on the updates

I installed Path Finder and the search function within a folder works well. Actually it is too powerful and overkill for most people.