Mail search totally broken since upgrading to Big Sur

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Level 3

810 points

Mail search totally broken since upgrading to Big Sur

On my home iMac, I upgraded from Catalina to Big Sur and mail search works fine.

On my Macbook, I upgraded straight from Mojave, and mail search has been screwed up ever since. When I start typing things, it finds them in the suggestions, but when I select them, it doesn't find them in the messages.

Googling around, this appears to be a common problem, and I've tried several fixes, including deleting and re-adding the search bar. Sometimes they work for a while, sometimes it eventually works after waiting several minutes. Now it appears to be broken entirely.

I have several accounts, including a university exchange server, a Yahoo Account, and two Google accounts, and none of them work, so it's not the server, although I tried deleting and re-adding the Exchange account and it didn't fix things.

This is very frustrating, and I'd appreciate any advice.

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.12

Posted on Nov 30, 2021 9:01 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

muguy

Level 10

82,987 points

Nov 30, 2021 9:07 AM in response to ejpre

Try these: https://support.apple.com/guide/mail/if-searching-doesnt-find-the-right-emails-mlhlp1192/mac

You may also benefit from rebuilding your mailboxes (mailbox > rebuild) in Mail or reindexing your spotlight search https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201716

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Answer 2

ejpre Author

Level 3

810 points

Dec 8, 2021 10:00 AM in response to muguy

Thanks, but none of those did anything. Like I said, the frustrating things is that when I start to type something in the search bar, the things I know are there show up as options, so it "knows" they're there, but then it doesn't find them.

Googling around, this is an extremely common complaint that Apple seems unwilling to address. One fix I found was to remove the search bar and then put it back. After waiting for it to re-index, that works for a few days, then stops again.

Now I'm stuck going directly to each server if I want to search for anything. Very frustrating.

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Answer 3

ejpre Author

Level 3

810 points

Dec 10, 2021 10:10 AM in response to ejpre

OK, I upgraded to Monterey AND deleted the envelope files AND removed and re-added the search bar AND did a safe boot, then waited until the next morning for everything to re-index.

One or more of those things seems to have worked - for now at least.

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Answer 4

ejpre Author

Level 3

810 points

Dec 8, 2021 10:08 AM in response to ejpre

Maybe this is a clue: If I type the info into Searchlight, it finds the message, but there's no preview and if I click on it nothing happens.

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Mail search totally broken since upgrading to Big Sur

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