Spotlight not indexing Outlook messages; but mdfind does (!)

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Jommeke Author

Level 1

4 points

Spotlight not indexing Outlook messages; but mdfind does (!)

Back in the days, Spotlight could find contents in the body of my outlook emails

This functionality no longer works. I tried everything (say, "a lot of things")

What baffles me is that the `mdfind` command still indexes the content of the OUTLOOK messages

e.g.

mdfind email_keyword

would give me something like this:

/Users/MY_USER/Library/Group Containers/UBF8XXXX.Office/Outlook/Outlook 15 Profiles/Main Profile/Data/Messages/151/XXXXFB68-XX94-XX8C-XXDF-XXXXX3408C4F.olk15Message

(I replaced some characters with X-es there to protect any potential private things.. no idea actually)

AND THEN:

When I open that "olk15Message" file in Finder, Finder actually opens Outlook and shows me the message.

SO:

mdfind indexes the outlook messages, but Spotlight does no longer show them

any tips? any ideas?

any comments are greatly appreciated

MacBook Pro 16″

Posted on Jun 20, 2024 8:54 AM

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Answer 1

Jommeke Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 8, 2024 7:22 AM in response to Jommeke

A work-around

instead of using command-spacebar to open spotlight,

just use option-command-spacebar; this opens a new Finder window with the cursor directly positioned in the search field at the right top

This search DOES include Outlook messages

I just wish Apple had proposed this. I had to find it out by myself

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Answer 2

Jommeke Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 8, 2024 6:57 AM in response to Jommeke

I opened a Support case for this with Apple.

The issue was forwarded first from FrontLine support to Senior Support and then from Senior Support to R&D

They were not able to fix the problem.

Additional info,

if you click on the Magnifying Glass in Finder and enter a searchterm there, the results include hits from Outlook emails. But if you enter the same search term in Spotlight, no Outlook findings show up.

For me this is a clear bug,

but Apple does not seem to care because it only affects Outlook users

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Answer 3

Jommeke Author

Level 1

4 points

Jun 23, 2024 12:37 PM in response to Jommeke

Isn't anyone using MS Outlook on Mac ?

Or anyone using Outlook indexing?

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Spotlight not indexing Outlook messages; but mdfind does (!)

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