Apple Removed Mail Search by Message Content in Lion 10.7.2

Question

Apple Removed Mail Search by Message Content in Lion 10.7.2

Just got off the phone with Apple Support. As usual, they are very helpful. However, I was disappointed to learn that Apple silently removed the ability to search mail by content in the latest update to OSX.

I have OSX Lion 10.7.2, and when I type anything into the search field in Mac Mail (or, interestingly, onwww.me.com), there are options to search only by subject or sender or recipient, not by message content as there used to be.

According to Emily at Apple Support, Apple intentionally removed the search by content feature because "it wasn't working right". They are or MAY be working to add it back in to the next update. No commitments.

Sadly, there was no mention of this DOWNGRADE at the time I installed 10.7.2. And, the knowledge base article herehttp://support.apple.com/kb/DL1458 makes no mention of Mail changes either.

Sad. Confused. And a little bit angry. Apple can and should do better.

Mac Mail on OSX Lion-OTHER, Mac OS X (10.7.2), Can't search mail by content

Posted on Dec 30, 2011 11:34 AM

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Answer 1

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,524 points

Dec 30, 2011 11:45 AM in response to kenfrompark city

Search by "message contains" is the default, but I guess you're looking for something that searches the attachments also. Is that correct? Otherwise, entire content is done by default.

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Answer 2

Dec 30, 2011 11:48 AM in response to Barney-15E

Sorry, Barney. I wish that were so. As I said, after upgrading to 10.7.2, the ability to search messages by content is gone. Not the attachment. The message body. "Mesage Contains" is either gone or greyed out.

If this feature is important to you, you may want to delay upgrading to 10.7.2.

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Answer 3

deggie

Level 10

167,177 points

Dec 30, 2011 11:51 AM in response to kenfrompark city

Works on mine, I just searched for "Door Sills" and it went to the one email message that contained that term.

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Answer 4

CT

Level 7

23,987 points

Dec 30, 2011 11:53 AM in response to kenfrompark city

Sad. Confused. And a little bit angry. Apple can and should do better.

Well, I agree with #2 out of 4.

I have no problems searching by content in OS 10.7.2. As Barney says, it's the default search state now.

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Answer 5

Dec 30, 2011 11:56 AM in response to CT

Here's my screen shot ...

Any ideas?

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Answer 6

deggie

Level 10

167,177 points

Dec 30, 2011 12:03 PM in response to kenfrompark city

Are you using the "Classic" mail settings?

And what version of mail?

Message was edited by: deggie

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Answer 7

Dec 30, 2011 12:11 PM in response to deggie

I'm using whatever mail client came with the 10.7.2 upgrade ...

And no, I'm not using "Classic" mode:

I am viewing by conversation though ...

Turning that off doesn't help.

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Answer 8

deggie

Level 10

167,177 points

Dec 30, 2011 12:13 PM in response to kenfrompark city

You might check software update and see if a newer mail is available. That does not look like the search screen that I am using.

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Answer 9

Dec 30, 2011 12:17 PM in response to deggie

Nope ...

I appreciate your help, Deggie, but as I mentioned above, Apple Support told me that Apple had intentionally removed this feature in "the latest update".

I can't explain why it works for you, and not for me. By the way, I've tried all the supposed fixes I could find by searching, including rebuiling the mailbox, using a test user and creating a new mail account, and the suggestion of entering something in the search field (like "to:sdfadfa" <return>) and editing the "to" token.

Nothing works (for me).

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Answer 10

varjak paw

Level 10

170,200 points

Dec 30, 2011 12:21 PM in response to kenfrompark city

You may need to rebuild your Spotlight indexing on your system. Mail uses Spotlight, and if the index is incomplete or corrupt, you'll get this sort of error. For instructions, see:

http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/stopspotlightindex.html#Anchor-Rebuilding-49575

Hope this helps.

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Answer 11

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,524 points

Dec 30, 2011 12:24 PM in response to kenfrompark city

As I said, "message contains" is the default.

Or, after I select a criteria:

It's quite possible that the people you talked to don't actually know what they speak of. Dave is likely on the right track.

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Answer 12

Dec 30, 2011 12:42 PM in response to Barney-15E

"Message contains" is not the default for me ...

The person I talked with put me on hold to talk to a senior advisor. She got the info from him/her.

In any case, I did try to rebuild the Spotlight index. First I saw this in Terminal after entering the command

"sudo mdutil -E /"

So, I apparently have no Spotlight index. BUT, looking at the Spotlight preferences, the Macintosh HD is NOT excluded from search ...

All those other drives are external USB drives, and Macintosh HD is not among them to be excluded. So, I hit the plus ➕ key to add the boot disk, and got a sequence of errors (posted in the next reply, since I can't add more images here).

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Answer 13

Dec 30, 2011 12:45 PM in response to kenfrompark city

When I tried to add Macintosh HD to the list of EXCLUDED search volumes, I got errors ... first this:

Then, after Choosing, I got this message ,,,

which is expected.

Then, after OK, the unexpected error:

So, thanks for all your help. It may not be a Mail problem at all. Unless someone has some other ideas, I'll call Apple again and see what this additional info might lead to.

Thanks

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Answer 14

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,541 points

Dec 30, 2011 12:58 PM in response to kenfrompark city

Launch the Console application by entering the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Enter "mdworker" (without the quotes) in the filtering text box. Post the messages that appear in the Console window -- the text, please, not a screenshot. Edit out excessive repeats, if any. Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included -- edit that out, too, but don’t remove the context.

Do the same with the search string "mds".

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Answer 15

Dec 30, 2011 1:13 PM in response to Linc Davis

Thanks, Linc ...

Here's what I see in Console for mdworker (with date/time on each line):

com.apple.mdworker.isolation.0:

FlateeDecode: decoding error: incorrect ata check

Twice.

Then for mds:

mds: (error) Volume: Coun not find requsted backup type: 2 for volume

Twice.

No excessive repeats, no personal data.

Thanks for helping out!

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