Calendar search not working in new MacBook Pro 2021 running Monterey 12.01

I just finished an online chat with Apple. The only thing that worked was reindexing spotlight, https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201716. Be sure to drag "Macintosh HD" into the window and then highlight it and click the minus sign to remove it. This will allow spotlight to completely reindex which takes some time (searching on spotlight will show the amount of time left). When finished, restart the computer and you should be fine.

On a new 16" MacBook Pro with Monterey 12.2 pre-installed, I had this problem. I tried re-indexing my Documents folder, but that didn't help at all. Last night I dragged the whole "Macintosh HD" icon into the Privacy tab of the Spotlight pane in System Preferences, then deleted it again, and that fired off a full re-indexing. I restarted this morning, and IT WORKED! I can find any event in the Calendar app now.

Further to my Jan 4 post I've now installed Monterey 12.1 and the problem has resolved.

Personally, I had to reindex Spotlight twice - the first time I don't think I let it finish (a couple of hours), second time I made sure my PB didn't sleep and let it run all night, new 16" 2021 MacBook Pro running 12.2.1, calendar searches work fine now.

I think you'll be ok if you do a software update to 12.2.1, the most recent. Try that and after the restart see if things improve.

My wife's new M1 MacBook Air running 12.0.1 has also lost the ability to search and she is desperate to get it working again. I saw the suggestion to rebuild the Spotlight Index, and had her try her calendar event search in Spotlight. This worked and brought all of the events she was looking for. So at least that is a work around for people. The one search she did was very specific. I'm thinking that you may have to select events and alerts as the only thing for Spotlight to search if you intend to use this workaround extensively. In the meantime, I wold like to rebuild the events and alerts database. But which file does this reside in?

Lownote

Houston, TX

Did you hold down the Shift key until the progress bar showed on the screen? If not do it again.

Rebuilding the Spotlight Index on my iMac twice did the trick for me. My Calendar searches work fine again. Thank you!

I also submit that this does not work. I believe Apple is aware of the problem, but haven't figured out how to fix it. One cannot search events prior to the time when one began using Calendar in their new OS. I have the new M1 iMac, and discovered the problem prior to Monterey 12.01. I hoped 12.01 would include the fix, and it seemed for a moment it did, but then back to no search. I can search events added since getting my iMac up and running, but not those prior to that.

This issue still applies to my newly set up MacBook Pro 2021 running Monterey 4th Jan 2022. The search is not working on the apple calendar, nor on the fantastical 2 calendar I use. The spotlight search is a sort of workaround but not as good as the proper calendar search function when it works. The search function still works on my iPhone & iPad calendars which is an additional work around. How do we flag to apple that the software needs fixing? Being able to search for appointments is important to my work.

Give this a try: boot into Safe Mode according to How to use safe mode on your Mac and test to see if the problem persists. Reboot normally and test again.

NOTE: Safe Mode boot can take up to 3 - 5 minutes as it's doing the following; 

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party kernel/extensions from loading)

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts 

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files