You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

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

bill96744 Author

Level 1

0 points

Search not working properly in mail

The search feature in Lion/Mail will not find names or words in the "Subject" category even when I know they exists. I use mail for my business and often need to find old emails from clients..... the new search feature in Lion does not work. How can Apple release a product with such a obvious flaw?

Other problems with mail.....

• When I open mail no new mail will appear in my "in box" until I select another mail box like "trash" or "Sent".... then the new mail will appear.

• The "Hide Mail" feature is greyed out when mail is open.... there's no way to hide mail.

• The scroll down bar on the right side of the window is hidden until you drag the edge of the frame over to reveal it.

• Windows are locked and can't be moved.

I've been using Apple products from the earliest days in the 1980's and quite frankly have been shocked at some of the things Apple is screwing up these days. From the Final Cut Pro conversion to Final Cut X disaster that has sent thousands of professional editors running to other products, to these seemingly small but irritating flaws with the new software being released before these problems have been addressed.

A search feature that does not work? Did anyone try this out before the release? Steve Jobs would be raising **** if he were still alive!

Posted on Apr 19, 2012 11:35 AM

Top-ranking reply

mcbuffy

Level 4

1,071 points

Posted on Apr 19, 2012 11:46 AM

Hello,

The search by Subject works perfectly with Mail in Lion. When your do a search be sure to select All in the search bar that appears.

View in context

107 replies

Jun 18, 2012 3:01 PM in response to PunkNugget

I do understand that it's an issue for you. I just meant that it's not a problem that millions of people are having. Something went wrong when you updated and it could be something got corrupted.

For spotlight preferences, open System Preferences. Choose the Spotlight icon and open it. Check that all boxes are checked off in the prefernce list. If so, click on the privacy tab and "+" sign to add your hard drive to it that your computer boots from. If it's already in the privacy list, then it means that nothing will search on the drive. Highlight the startup volume and click the "-" sign to remove it from the list. You should notice spotlight start to reindex the drive. Wait until it finishes and try searching.

For more info: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2409

If your hard drive that you boot from is in this list, then highlight it and click the minus sign to remove it.

Jun 18, 2012 3:09 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

Okay, I will do that. Also, just to let you know I am able to search by people's specific names when searching using spotlight and it works. I just prefer to use Mac's Mail Search Bar to make that happen. I'm at least thankful that Spotlight is working. Again, thank you for your time... 🙂

Jun 18, 2012 7:31 PM in response to PunkNugget

If it's working in spotlight, then it should work in mail search also. Did you change anything to make it work in spotlight?

Jun 18, 2012 8:08 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

Nope, didn't delete or change anything yet. Isn't that funny? Nothing still is working on my search bar in Mail.app, but on Spotlight, everything is able to search even the most current emails from today... Don't know what to say about that..

Did you still want me to try out that proceedure that you gave me instructions on? Thanks for the follow up... 🙂

bill96744 Author

Level 1

0 points

Jun 18, 2012 8:39 PM in response to PunkNugget

You're not alone...... I started this thread weeks ago and still have not been able to get search to work via Mail or Spotlight after trying everything suggested. My other computers running Lion are working fine, but my Mac Book Pro can;t find anything via search. Frustrating!

Jun 18, 2012 8:47 PM in response to PunkNugget

If it's working in Spotlight, then no. Reindexing won't do any good.

When you search in Mail, do you have the "All" mailboxes selected?

Also, what kind of account is this? IMAP? iCloud? POP?

If IMAP or iCloud, do you have it set to store messages for offline viewing (a setting under the Advanced tab in Accounts)?

You could create a new user for testing. Log into that user and create your mail accounts there. Test to see if the search works there. That will determine if it's a problem in your user account or with the Mail application.

Jun 19, 2012 8:14 AM in response to Glenn Leblanc

Just to let you know Glenn, I did finally try that proceedure that you said to do and after I "-" the boot drive from the privacy section of Spotlight, it finally re-indexed everything (took about 20 to 25 min) and the search bar in Mail.app works just fine now. But since I've gotten used to using Spotlight now. I guess I'll be using that from now on as it's faster - LOL !!! Thanks for all the help !!! 🙂

Jun 19, 2012 9:01 AM in response to PunkNugget

Well, I didn't think spotlight reindexing would work for Mail since you said the search was working in it. Glad to see it did work.

Guess you never know.

To bill96744

I see you hadn't resolved your problem. Have you tried the Spotlight reindexing?

Jun 21, 2012 4:42 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

Glenn, deleting that MailData folder and allowing Mail to reindex itself worked great and solved my problem. Thanks!!! It's shocking that Apple allows such an obvious flaw to persist.

Jun 21, 2012 4:57 PM in response to kmartin696

I didn't say to delete the folder, but certain files within. If you delete the folder, then you will have to recreate the accounts. I assume you meant you deleted the Envelope Index files within the folder.

I don't know what corrupts the files, but I don't think I would call it a flaw. Most people aren't having problems that I know of. It would be wonderful if someone could invent a flawless system though.

Jun 21, 2012 6:18 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

Sorry, thanks for clarifying. I DID NOT delete the MailData folder, I only deleted the Envelope files from within the MailData folder, and that did the trick.

Jun 21, 2012 6:23 PM in response to kmartin696

I figured you did. I just didn't want anyone else to get the wrong info.

Glad that helped you and you're welcome.

Jul 4, 2012 7:05 AM in response to Glenn Leblanc

Glenn,

After upgrading Snow Leopard to Lion this last week, I too experienced the loss of Search in Mail. It would search recent messages, but I've got mail that dates back 15 years, and all those messages were excluded from Search.

I followed the directions for removing the Envelope Index files, then Mail took a while importing all old messages, and now Search works properly as before the upgrade. Thanks for a great tip!

Jul 4, 2012 7:15 AM in response to Steve Curtis1

Nice to see people are getting help from this.

TDinMV

Level 1

0 points

Jul 5, 2012 3:54 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

Just upgraded to Lion from Snow Leopard on my MacBook Pro, and was having this Mail Search issue. (Interesting the upgrade was not an issue on my iMac). I rebuilt the index file as described above by Glenn, and now it's working fine (at least so far, so good). Thank you!!!

Search not working properly in mail