Mail search feature not working

Exactly what New Creator said! Apple owes us an apology and a fix. Search entire message doesn't include the header? And how does one search for messages from a person who uses multiple email addresses? Most of the people I know use multiple email addresses and it is slow and inconvenient to have to check each of the possible email addresses they might have used.

APPLE STOP THE REGRESSIONS! Look after your customers. Don't become "That Company" who thinks it is too powerful to worry about its customers "Oh well we're getting enough right, let's not worry about these details". That is the way to become the company everyone loves to hate, instead of the one everyone loves. Didn't another company flood the market with a bad operating system with terrible design choices and no way for the user to alter them? Is that what you want to become?

I had the same problems with Mail on Mountain Lion.

I followed these steps outlined here:

http://osxdaily.com/2012/02/02/reindex-spotlight-from-the-command-line/

and now search in Mail seems to be working well. Rebuilding the mailbox in Mail did NOT fix it but this did.

In Terminal paste this in:

sudo mdutil -E /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/

Enter password when prompted. this fixed it for me (see link in my post above for more information)

Thanks for the hints. My mac is on 10.7.5 and I use both gmail and yahoo mail. I also have been having problems with Search in Mail. It is very inconsistent especially for searched in Subject lines, and even in the text of an email. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Right now it does not work (although searches for email addresses for People "To" and "From" does work).

I tried the "sudo mdutil -E /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/" it says that it re-indexed without problems. But the search function still does not work as before.

This seems to be a very common problem cited accross the web.

Does anyone have any ideas or is the search function gone for good?

Thanks in advance!

When I tried the reindexing method, I noticed that indexing was actually disabled. I disabled it because I don't use Spotlight and then forgot about it. I didn't expect it would affect search within Mail.

If your indexing is deactivated, reactivate it using typing the following command in the Terminal:

sudo mdutil -a -i on

I have tried each of these fixes and still cannot search my mail. I tried the reindexing, the rebuilding, and the envelop files.

I took my new Macbook Pro Retina 13 to Apple and asked them about it. They said it is a 'known issue' and Apple are 'working on it.'

However, since then there have been two updates to the system and no fix. I cannot file my mail as I cannot search it.

About to install Outlook because this is a nightmare and Apple doesn't seem to care one bit about it.

Sad.

@Sciamo69 Upgrade to Mavericks. It is free. Mail search works extremely well in Mavericks.

I sincerely doubt Apple will ever fix the problem in Lion since that is two operating systems ago.

By the way, check out the Mail addon apps at Indev.ca. I LOVE them. They have three: Mail Tags, Mail Act On, and Mail Perspectives. You can buy them as a package or individually. I use all three.

@Sciamo69 Upgrade to Mavericks. It is free. Mail search works extremely well in Mavericks.

I sincerely doubt Apple will ever fix the problem in Lion since that is two operating systems ago.

By the way, check out the Mail addon apps at Indev.ca. I LOVE them. They have three: Mail Tags, Mail Act On, and Mail Perspectives. You can buy them as a package or individually. I use all three.

Mail search under Mavericks is a mixed bag. It works sometimes and is totally useless at others. We are waiting on Apple to fix this, and have been since Lion came out. I hope someone at Apple is smart enough to figure it out and is given time space and resources to fix it forever.