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Apple Mail Search endlessly slow

Searching in Apple Mail takes endless time. I have had this problem before, had solved it by following some standard recipe that involves deleting certain files and restarting, but this doesn't work anymore. It really stops me from performing many regular tasks, so the issue is really pressing.

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 13.2

Posted on Mar 22, 2023 5:23 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Mar 22, 2023 5:53 AM

msgaxl wrote:

Searching in Apple Mail takes endless time. I have had this problem before, had solved it by following some standard recipe that involves deleting certain files and restarting, but this doesn't work anymore. It really stops me from performing many regular tasks, so the issue is really pressing.


Why not state exactly what you did...? Very hard to speculate here.


What I can say is Mail search is dependent on the Spotlight search Index—


spotlight

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support


The best method, with the best results seems to be the Macintosh HD drag and drop method




ref: A Spotlight Search, made within an open F… - Apple Community



1 reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Mar 22, 2023 5:53 AM in response to msgaxl

msgaxl wrote:

Searching in Apple Mail takes endless time. I have had this problem before, had solved it by following some standard recipe that involves deleting certain files and restarting, but this doesn't work anymore. It really stops me from performing many regular tasks, so the issue is really pressing.


Why not state exactly what you did...? Very hard to speculate here.


What I can say is Mail search is dependent on the Spotlight search Index—


spotlight

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support


The best method, with the best results seems to be the Macintosh HD drag and drop method




ref: A Spotlight Search, made within an open F… - Apple Community



Apple Mail Search endlessly slow

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