Apple Mail: Search for mailboxes doesn't work anymore since update to Ventura

No. Cleaning/optimizing software does not fix the problem.

If you look back I wrote how I setup an iCloud account on a fresh nuke/paved machine. Same problem.

Works fine on Catalina.

There is a problem with app itself. Hopefully, devs find it.

For some reason, I couldn't search for numbers, such as an amount for an Amazon receipt. With or without the "$" symbol.

This is what worked for me...

Go to System Settings > Siri & Spotlight. Deselect MAIL & MESSAGES. I waited about 10 seconds, then reselected. Then Mail search worked. I don't know how long this fix will "stick", but for now I can search.

Hope this helps someone else.

One workaround is to purchase a program like eagle filer and then migrate your old mail over there and it will search that no problem. But what a pain.

It’s really disappointing because Ventura mail overhaul should have fixed the search issues in mail. The mail team has not fixed this problem. Hopefully 13.1 will address the issue but it’s been broken since Big Sur so I’m pretty doubtful.

i’ve seen this problem on so many clients machines over the last few years, I end up telling them search it on a machine with Catalina or use your iPhone. Or, move to a different mail client like spark.

Your screenshots are not showing, for some reason.

Did you look in System Settings->Siri & Spotlight to make sure that "Mail & Messages" is checked?

Thaddaeus77 wrote:

Hi,

the search no longer shows results for mailboxes. Does anyone have this issue, too? Or is this a "feature"?

I have already restarted the Spotlight indexing...

You can rebuild the Spotlight index easy enough—

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support

I would use the drag and drop Macintosh HD method, and try again ex.

if no insight or resolve you can t /submit your Apple Feedback here: Product Feedback - Apple

or Call Customer Support (800) MY–APPLE (800–692–7753)

or on line Apple Support

Have you installed and run any "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus or VPN apps on your Mac?

Mail searching has been a problem since Monterey for me. I was hoping it would be fixed in Ventura, but not seeing much change .

For instance. If I type in $5.83 to look for an amazon charge in my iCloud accoung on my Catalina machine running Mail 13.4 it finds it, no problem. Doing the same search on Monterey or Ventura finds no results.

I'm a macadmin (for 20 years). This problem has been driving me nuts.

I decided to setup a spare mac with clean Monterey 12.6.1 and only sync iCloud.

I let it download all of my messages and it still can't find the message.

destroyed spotlight index, let it rebuild. Then rebuilt mail env indexes...

Still can't find it.

Just tried the same thing on Ventura and sad to say, not working either.

I've been keeping a mac with a copy of Catalina around just so that I can find mail! If you can't do this, you might try searching iCloud.com for your mai. Maybe it works better there.

Another suggestions would be to export their old mail to Eaglefiler where the search works.

Hopefully, the devs see this and find a fix for 13.2 or 13.3.

I suggest anyone reading this string submit feedback requesting the developers bring back this feature: Product Feedback - Apple.

I have literally hundreds and hundreds of mailbox folders for clients. Now I have to death-scroll all day, every day to see communications related to a particular client. So ridiculous to remove such a simple sort filter in the search bar.

All the work arounds and various solutions are great and whatever - but THIS SHOULD NOT BE NECESSARY! APPLE NEEDS TO JUST BRING BACK THE ABILITY TO FILTER FOR MAILBOXES!!!

There is no fix yet. The only solution I have is a workaround - Search still works on iPhone and iCloud. Find the email you want there and and then scroll by date to find it in mail. Smart mailboxes just don't work in Mail anymore either.

emiratefan wrote:

There is no fix yet. The only solution I have is a workaround - Search still works on iPhone and iCloud. Find the email you want there and and then scroll by date to find it in mail. Smart mailboxes just don't work in Mail anymore either.

What is it in Smart Mailboxes that does not work for you?

They work fine here...

I've had this problem since Catalina and its persisted. Affects Notes as well. Its well posted elsewhere. My solution is to use IOS. Search works fine on the iphone and once I've found what I'm looking for I can scroll to the date on the mac to find the email (or note).

It seems to be working with 13.1, I don't know for how long. It was working at the begining with Ventura, then stopped.

Friends, I have the same problem. Searching in mail for topics or people doesn't bring up the relevant Mailbox as an option. This is a dog as I will now have to navigate down the left hand mailbox hierarchy each time I need to go to a mailbox, versus just searching for it and clicking on it from the search results. Nuts. So you're telling us that you've discussed this at length with Apple and even their senior support people have no solution but to hand it over to their dev team to fix? I mean there's nothing that the individual mac user can do?

Thaddaeus77 – I just noticed today I have the same problem after updating to Ventura three days ago. Now I have to go to the side bar .... vey time consuming. The question is why?, Why Apple to take out features when adding just a few ones.

Fanny thing is that main reason for updating to Ventura was to have the "Send Later" and "Remind Me" options in Mail (For the former I had to save an email as draft in Mail, then open Outlook to use its send later feature).