Mail not searching with Big Sur 11.4

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Level 1

4 points

Mail not searching with Big Sur 11.4

Upgrade to big Sur 11.4, Mail searching seems not working, pretty slow and sometimes not responding at all. How to fix it?

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 11.4

Posted on Dec 7, 2021 6:01 PM

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Answer 1

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RobinSHSJ Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 13, 2021 3:06 AM in response to steve626

I upgraded to Big Sur from high Sierra in this August, I found the mail searching slow issue immediately, but a few days later it seemed improved a lot! Last week I deleted email account and re-registered, rebuilt mail boxes, it took usually more than 15s or even longer to show result, that's crazy! But today, I found mail searching speed was almost as fast as before, immediate response! So I agree it was re-indexing the drive, and sometimes it takes couple days! Recap my experience: delete email account - re-register mail account - rebuild mail boxes - and wait for couple days - return to normal! Thank you all for sharing!

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Answer 2

KMB_12

Community Specialist

Dec 8, 2021 2:21 PM in response to RobinSHSJ

Thanks for posting in the Apple Support Communities RobinSHSJ,

We understand you're encountering performance and other issues, specifically with Mail.

The steps on the following page, may help: If your Mac runs slowly

If you need further assistance, to increase your chances of getting a specific and helpful response, we recommend providing more info.

For example, did you upgrade from an earlier version of macOS, or update from an earlier version of macOS Big Sur? How long ago did you install the update or upgrade? In some cases, your Mac may temporarily use more resources, and search may be affected, as it re-indexes.

When you say search sometimes doesn't respond, do you mean you don't get any results, or the app becomes unresponsive when you try to search?

Cheers!

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Answer 3

steve626

Level 6

10,043 points

Dec 12, 2021 7:17 PM in response to RobinSHSJ

How long ago did you upgrade to Big Sur? It might be re-indexing the drive which means searching won't work properly until it finishes. If your computer has been on and running (not sleeping) for a couple of days, then it should have finished, however.

I upgraded from Catalina to Big Sur several days ago and my Mail searching (2013 MacBook Air, so it's an older Mac, just 8 GB memory) is immediate.

Several things could slow it down:

low on disk space
less than 8 GB memory
running anti-virus or third party security programs, or "cleaner" programs, or other third party tools

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Answer 4

RobinSHSJ Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 12, 2021 6:48 PM in response to KMB_12

Thank you for the reply. The issue I described here is that mail searching is very slow when upgrade to macOS Big Sur, to be exactly, when type any mail keyword or email address or date anything… it takes very time to show the search result, saying more than 15s while an instant response is what I usually saw before upgrading to Big Sur. Mail size and total qty no big increase before and after macOS upgrade! I tried delete mail account and re-register account & rebuild email boxes, seems no big change. I miss that instant mail searching response just like before, not waiting for 15s or longer for a result! Let me know if any actions may help!

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Answer 5

SnickZ.

Community Specialist

Dec 13, 2021 5:48 AM in response to RobinSHSJ

Thanks for keeping the thread up to date with what's happening RobinSHSJ,

Were you able to check your Mac's startup disk, and make sure there's plenty of available storage? How much storage space does it say you currently have available?

Open the Activity Monitor app on your Mac, and click the Memory tab, then open Mail and search for a message. Is the Memory Pressure graph at the bottom of the Activity Monitor green, and does it remain green after searching?

With Activity Monitor still open, click the CPU tab. Are any of the processes shown indicating they are unresponsive, or appearing in red text?

If you quit any other open apps on your Mac, then search in Mail, do you notice an improvement?

Thanks!

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Answer 6

RobinSHSJ Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 13, 2021 7:16 PM in response to SnickZ.

Thank you SnickZ for the follow up!

As I replied before, my mail search in Big Sur returned to normal, almost showed the result immediately!(My experiment: delete mail account - re-register mail account - rebuilt mail boxes - waiting for couple days - Searching function back to normal)

But I still checked following the process you advised because it may help the cases of other users.

Yes, there’s still plenty of storage, nearly 100GB, so that should not be the main cause in my case! In the other hand, CPU graph is at the bottom and always green before and after the mail searching!

Finally I think it takes days of time to rebuild mail boxes and re-indexing in the storage! (Download mail from the server and local storage)

Thank you!

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Mail not searching with Big Sur 11.4

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