Search not working properly in mail

thank you yule...success!

I had the same problem.

Here is a simple solution"

• Mark your mailbox in the list of mailboxes on the left in your apple mail window by clicking on its name once.
• From the menu select "Mailbox" => "Rebuild".
• After the rebuild you should get the right search results again.
• Proceed with Step 1-2 for all your mailboxes (also for every top-level folder that is stored under "local" in your list of mailboxes).

Just to say thanks to Glenn, as the solution to rebuild for my Macbookpro Retina 15' 2.6 went quite well (version10.9)

I just need to add two points:

- from my former email, it looks like ok with "envelop in datas" trashed, but it was short, then the problem came back.

- It looks like Onyx works well and reset email search as it was prior

Note that to open Onyx as downloaded from the link proposed by Glenn, you cannot open it by double clicking, but clicking the Onyx icon using command key then open

I tried all suggestions in this thread and still couldn't make it work.

Finally, I fixed it by removing the app: RAR Extract

After removing this app, follow the other suggestions in this thread (delete envelope files, and reset mail spotlight index). finally everything works again.

The reason I spotted RAR Extract is because When I enter ~/Library/Mail/V2 , I noticed some of the folders (especially those POP folders) are not the blue folder icons. Instead, the icon is associated with the app RAR Extract. I have no idea how RAR Extract occupied those POP folders. But the thing is: in my Mail application, only POP3 mails cannot be searched. This makes me guess that I should remove this app and give it a try.

I am not sure whether there are other apps which would occupy the mail folders. You may try looking into the folder ~/Library/Mail/V2 . It should look like the image below (with light blue Apple-style folder icons). If you see the icons are changed to something else, you can try removing that app and see if your search can work again. (note that after removing the app, make sure you do other suggestions in this thread, e.g. deleting the envelope files and reset mail Spotlight index)

Has this only affected email in your Trash or occur for searching in any other mailbox ?

Only emails (for me)

In what mailbox are located the emails your search cannot find ? Are they in a specific mailbox or do you have search problem in all mailboxes ?

I have a search problem in Mail, but it is only for emails in that are in my TRASH folder ... and I found the cause.

Interested to know the cause, as I have still some emails I do not find in the trash box...

The problem looks quite interesting to solve !

🙂

Hi Dominique,

I have an IMAP account. I often need to consult a deleted email. At first, a deleted email can seem useless, but then later, to help recall things or find an information, I need to dig in the Trash. For this reason, I want to keep the content of my Trash for at least 2 or 3 months, but my ISP destroys them every 7 days, and I cannot have this delay modified.

To avoid this, I choose not to sync the Trash with my ISP's server ... and accept that it's content will not be synchronized and available on my mobile devices. To do this you need to uncheck an option in Mail's account preferences (see below).

I called Apple's technical support and escalated my case to level 2. We discovered that whenever that option is uncheck, finding an email in the Trash folder is flaky, i.e. searching does not return most of the email in the Trash folder. If you reindex your emails, you will be able to find them, but will not be able to find any one deleted after reindexing.

The agent experienced the same result as I did. He is supposed to call me back in a few days. If you are interested, I will keep this thread posted.

Regards.

Robert Lespérance

Québec, Canada

Merci Robert, oui je suis preneur pour la suite, j'ai exactement ce problème (avec POP cependant)

🙂

Ça me fera grand plaisir ... Mais pour le plaisir des autres, je poursuivrai en anglais. 😉😉😉

oui, mais j'ai pas pu m'empêcher de mettre une touche francophone dans cet univers là...

🙂

🙂🙂🙂 !!!

I tried this simple trick offered by justcallmekath before doing the more complex re-indexing suggested by Glenn and others (I have a new macbook air and everything transferred from my old macbook pro via timemachine perfectly, but like others, the search function in Macmail was not working, though it looked like all of my old emails were actually there; so frustrating!). Anyway, this worked immediately--thank you so much for the tip. Also, I should note this was a problem using Maverick, the new operating system (10.9), so the bug continues.... So glad for this easy fix!