Search not working properly in mail

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.

You can try rebuilding the message index if Mail is not locating messages.

You can select a mailbox and use the rebuild function under Mailbox in the menu. Do this for each mailbox.

A more thorough and complete way:

Quit Mail.

Go to the Home Library folder. This is hidden in Lion. To get to it, select GO in the Finder menu while holding the option key down. Select Library in the submenu. Then navigate to Mail folder/ V2 Folder/ MailData folder. Find the Envelope Index Files. Move them to the desktop or trash and restart Mail. Select continue in the message box. This could take a while depending on how many messages you have.

Once complete, try the search again.

Also, if you have another application open besides Mail, the hide Mail feature should work.

Thanks Glenn, that solution worked for my Mail search problem.

SOLUTION Below (but read the following first):

I'm still using Leopard till the bugs in Lion are fixed, but my solution may work for Lion & other OS users.

1. Remove Mail's Search Field (by clicking in the field, dragging it & release it), or Right click the Menu/Customize Toolbar/Drag the Search field to remove it.

2. (Not sure if this was necessary but I did): Close Mail.

3. Reopen Mail, Right click the Mail's Menu Bar (or in between the icons)/Choose Customize Toolbar/Drag the Search field from the list to its previous location/a location of your choice.

4. Restart Mail (may not be necessary), ... Wallah! My search engine came back.

Just did that - and it's working again! Thanks!!

I did what you suggested and also did what Glenn Leblanc said and still nothing. When I use the search bar in mail and type in a person's name that I need to search for... nothing.. 😟 Very puzzled as to why... Is there another solution? Thank you for whoever reads this and is able to provide help...

Only other thing I can add is to make sure messages and contacts are checked in Spotlight's Preferences.

If they are checked, you can try to reindex your startup volume by adding it to Spotlight's privacy list, then remove it to start reindexing the volume.

Only other thing I can add is to make sure messages and contacts are checked in Spotlight's Preferences.

They are checked already...

If they are checked, you can try to reindex your startup volume by adding it to Spotlight's privacy list, then remove it to start reindexing the volume.

How do I do that? What folder or something do I have to select and in what place specifically do I have choose to get it in there? Thank you for your help... 🙂

Select the Privacy tab in Spotlight preferences, click the "+" at the bottom. Choose your startup volume from the sidebar in the window. Once added to the privacy list, go back and select it in the privacy list and click the "-" sign to remove it from the list. It should start reindexing the startup volume.

I don't know if it will help, but you could give it a try.

If it doesn't work, you might try posting a new discussion to see if others might have some thoughts on it.

Thank you. I can't find "startup volume" in the side bar. Is that my SSD (or hard disc) main boot drive you're taliking about? I hope this will work...

If it doesn't work, you might try posting a new discussion to see if others might have some thoughts on it.

Well, there's another post (here):

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1293956

from the looks of it, I'm in serious trouble as this is now becomming a common issue and one that has no resolve. This really messes everything up as I need (as well as a lot of others out there) to use the search on a daily basis for me to check on past emails. I rely on that to work. This is terrible... 😮 There is really no other way to search for anything now. What was Apple thinking?...

Again, I look forward to your reply to my (above) question... 🙂

BTW Glenn, if I haven't expressed a big enough thnak you I want to make sure I did - THANK YOU !!!!! Now that I'm thinking about it what did you mean by all of this info? You said:

"Select the Privacy tab in Spotlight preferences, click the "+" at the bottom. Choose your startup volume from the sidebar in the window."

If that's my boot drive, then that is selected already.

"Once added to the privacy list, go back and select it in the privacy list and click the "-" sign to remove it from the list. It should start reindexing the startup volume."

What? I don't quite understand that...

Again, appreciate your efforts and look forward to your reply soon... 🙂

Yes, that would be your SSD drive, if that's what you're booting from. I would expect that all your information is also stored there.

As far as searching Mail messages, I have no idea what that other post is saying other than they have problems they didn't resolve. A few people having a problem doesn't mean that it's a common issue.

My search features work fine in Mail.

For posting another discussion, I was referring to Appple Discussion forum that this is in.

I hear you but this is an issue. Maybe not for you but this is insane. Two days ago with my other SSD it's working (in 10.7.2), now with my other SSD (in 10.7.3) it's NOT ??? And I'm not the only one. I'm sure there's many others out there that aren't expressing anything about it, but that's not what I'm seeing when I google it:

http://www.google.com/search?q=mac%20mail%20search%20is%20not%20working&ie=utf-8 &oe=utf-8

and it's happening with 10.7.0 and above. So again, I don't know why it didn't do it in 10.7 or 10.7.2 and now in 10.7.3 it's now not able to do a simple search. In any case this isn't good...

I do hope you re-read my edit and try to explain it. I may be looking too far into things and it may be as simple as you say. Since it's already in there I should just take it out and it should re-index it for me? I hope this works... Agian, thanks... 🙂