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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

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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.

107 replies

Apr 19, 2012 12:38 PM in response to mcbuffy

Mcbuffy,


I've been using it with "All" selected and it does not work. I'm not the only one having this issue, many of my friends are also experiencing the same problem. To test it, I've searched for known emails... via all, looking for the name of the person it was sent from.... the subject.... contents in the email..... sometimes it will work but most of the time it won't find the email. For the test I can see the email in the middle section of the browser and search for "Discover" which is in the subject line.... it doesn't matter if I slect "all".... "InBox" or any other category... it's not working on my computers that are using Lion. Snow Leopard has no issues.

Apr 19, 2012 1:16 PM in response to bill96744

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.

May 14, 2012 3:25 PM in response to bill96744

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.


And that's after Months of doing without it.


Hope it works for you too.

Jun 18, 2012 1:18 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

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... 🙂

Jun 18, 2012 1:44 PM in response to PunkNugget

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.

Jun 18, 2012 2:00 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

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... 🙂

Jun 18, 2012 2:33 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

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... 🙂

Jun 18, 2012 2:31 PM in response to PunkNugget

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.

Jun 18, 2012 2:43 PM in response to Glenn Leblanc

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... 🙂

Search not working properly in mail

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