Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Mail search feature not working

Not a good day today but to top it off, my Mail search feature doesn't seem to be working. In the past I've praised OSX Mail search features and enjoyed the instant results all whilst bashing the inop feature Outlook and Notes try to utilize. I'm afraid to say the OSX Lion Mail search feature is completely non-functional. As I was searching for this issue through the support topics, I noticed this very topic appear then quickly disappear. I couldn't duplicate the search again for anything. Hmm.


Also, what's the dealy with opening a PDF in Mail with Preview and your last 5 PDF's open as well? Uncool. And I want Safari to open with my Home page, not the last page I visited.


At least the Spotlight will still identify the messages I'm wrangling for.


No need to reply... just need to vent a bit.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Aug 5, 2011 11:53 AM

Reply
39 replies

Aug 5, 2011 11:06 PM in response to JJunkins

Join the club. Lion seem to be less finished than Cheetah. It's just a jumble of half-baked, half-functional ideas thrown together without any testing. Calling it alpha quality would be giving it too much praise.


My mail search doesn't work either. I can copy a word from a message and paste it into the search bar and it will return 0 results. Messages don't turn up in spotlight either. I've done all the posted fixes of mailbox rebuilding, spotlight enabling and reindexing, even setting up a new account under a new user profile. Nothing works.


The mail/pdf/preview problem is a bug in preview and also textedit. Even though there is a setting in System Preferences > General to turn off programs opening their last open documents, it seems to be only for decoration. Text edit and preview ignore it. So you have to close every window first before quitting the app. Textedit also has a habit of adding a "txt" extension to almost ever file you save, including html files. I've even copied both textedit and preview from a snow leopard installation to get the older, superior functionality back. It even gets rid of the horrible save/duplicate/revert garbage.


So tomorrow I'm buying another hard drive to backup all my files to then wiping out Lion and upgrading to Snow Leopard. I was going to wait for the .1 fix to come out but there is way too many things that need fixing for this to become a usable OS in the near future. Maybe I'll look at it again after .4 or .5 comes out.

Sep 13, 2011 7:53 AM in response to JJunkins

A lot of things are broken in LION. Not recommended for professionals (only iPad users).


But here's a way to make better use of Mail Search:


In the new Mac LION MAIL app, it's not apparent that you can search for any part of any email address the way you could before with any previous OS, for when you type partial email text in the MAIL search field, it simply gives you a drop-down list of wrong or limited suggestions and none of the suggestions are email addresses, but people's names. I don't want to search by name, I want to search by email address. (Maybe I'm the only one who does this.) If two different email addresses have the same associated name (which I have), it chooses the wrong one and searches for the wrong email address!

But there is a way:

1) Select the mailbox you want to search (if any).

2) Type in the search field:

to: any_string ["return" or "enter"]

OR

from: any_string ["return" or "enter"]

3) Your entry will change from this:

User uploaded file

to this:

User uploaded file

4) Notice that after you press "return" or "enter", your "to:" (or "from:") becomes a pull-down-menu button and the MAIL's silly choices go away. If you click the button, you get this:

User uploaded file

and you can change your choice.

3) Strangely, "to:" or "from:" MUST be ALL lowercase for this change to take place. (It will still work if "To:" and "FroM:" are all or part uppercase, but the change to a menu button will not occur.)

4) On the menu bar below the toolbar, you will see the places to search ("All…Selected mailbox…Inbox…Drafts…Sent…Flagged")

User uploaded file

Sep 13, 2011 7:46 AM in response to JJunkins

JJunkins wrote:


Not a good day today but to top it off, my Mail search feature doesn't seem to be working. In the past I've praised OSX Mail search features and enjoyed the instant results all whilst bashing the inop feature Outlook and Notes try to utilize. I'm afraid to say the OSX Lion Mail search feature is completely non-functional.


Can you be more specific? Try re-indexing Spotlght


Also, what's the dealy with opening a PDF in Mail with Preview and your last 5 PDF's open as well? Uncool. And I want Safari to open with my Home page, not the last page I visited.


Easy fix, just uncheck:


User uploaded file



No need to reply... just need to vent a bit.


Oh, please ignore my post 😉

Oct 6, 2011 8:26 AM in response to JJunkins

Same problem here. Seems to be a Lion thing as mentioned. In my limited testing searching in the finder Spotlight (upper right of the entire screen) returned the results I was looking for. However, in Mail I need to start typing what I'm looking for then select from the suggestions it provides people and then pick the to or from. When I select entire message or just type in what I'm looking for I don't get the results. So basically all the same problems here. I'll be using sytem wide spotlight search while waiting for a fix. I hope you are reporting this to Apple:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

Nov 5, 2011 9:24 AM in response to LaraCroft_NYC

I don't get the little pull down menu that you do after typing "any_string". In addition to that:


What I have done:


Rebuild indexes via spotlight

Rebuild indexes via terminal

Rebuild mailboxes via Mail Menu

Made sure messages have copies for offline viewing in Mail preferences

Deleted corrupt preferences (if any)

Reinstalled Lion

Ran a third party vacuum tool on Mail database



I went so far as to use an identical backup of my system on antother computer running Snow Leopard, my laptop still has SL running Mail on it so Mail arrives at both computers. Mail searches perfectly.


Searched mail using "all" and the term "computer" here are the results using identical mail programs different operating systems.


Lion found 118 matches for the term "computer"

Snow Leopard found 2691 matches for the term "computer"


Go figure?

Nov 9, 2011 11:55 AM in response to supportme2

It's the entire message bit that seems really broken. So in a From: search I get 46 messages found. In an "Entire Message" (noted as Any) I get 11 messages found. This makes me wonder whether "Entire Message" does not include the header - especially the From part.


Come on Apple, two updates to Lion already (I am at 10.7.2) but still this problem is a BIG NUISANCE. What's the deal?

Nov 13, 2011 7:11 AM in response to LaraCroft_NYC

LaraCroft_NYC wrote:


A lot of things are broken in LION. Not recommended for professionals (only iPad users).


But here's a way to make better use of Mail Search:


In the new Mac LION MAIL app, it's not apparent that you can search for any part of any email address the way you could before with any previous OS, for when you type partial email text in the MAIL search field, it simply gives you a drop-down list of wrong or limited suggestions and none of the suggestions are email addresses, but people's names. I don't want to search by name, I want to search by email address. (Maybe I'm the only one who does this.) If two different email addresses have the same associated name (which I have), it chooses the wrong one and searches for the wrong email address!

But there is a way:

1) Select the mailbox you want to search (if any).

2) Type in the search field:

to: any_string ["return" or "enter"]

OR

from: any_string ["return" or "enter"]

3) Your entry will change from this:

User uploaded file

to this:

User uploaded file

4) Notice that after you press "return" or "enter", your "to:" (or "from:") becomes a pull-down-menu button and the MAIL's silly choices go away. If you click the button, you get this:

User uploaded file

and you can change your choice.

3) Strangely, "to:" or "from:" MUST be ALL lowercase for this change to take place. (It will still work if "To:" and "FroM:" are all or part uppercase, but the change to a menu button will not occur.)

4) On the menu bar below the toolbar, you will see the places to search ("All…Selected mailbox…Inbox…Drafts…Sent…Flagged")

User uploaded file




Hello Lara_Croft.


Again, this time with your original fix. This works for me.. big help until Apple gets this squared away.


Alan Roseman

Mail search feature not working

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.