ios 7 Mail Search Problems

climber12we wrote:

This is the death of the Mail app for most business people. There are plenty of third party email apps out there. I made the switch the Sparrow email app which is fine for all email account types except Exchange. There are a few paid third party email apps on the App Store that support Exchange if you search the app store or do a google search. Sparrow, as well as most other third party email apps that I tested still have the industry standard search functions that we are all looking for: To:, From: Subject:, All:. Give it a whirl, I doubt this will be fixed soon. Kind of a weird thing to take away from users.

It still works to send and receive email, so I wouldn't say this is "the death of the Mail app". Perhaps for those who are very reliant on the search function, but not the rest of us.

I don't know how useful it is to mention Sparrow here if this is a problem affecting Exchange users.

pshute wrote:

1. It still works to send and receive email, so I wouldn't say this is "the death of the Mail app".

2. Perhaps for those who are very reliant on the search function, but not the rest of us.

3. I don't know how useful it is to mention Sparrow here if this is a problem affecting Exchange users.

One at a time:

1. Read what I wrote more carefully. I didn't say it is "the death of the Mail app". I said "it is the death of the Mail app for most business people".

2. Again... business people.

3. It is not effecting only Exchange users. It is effecting all POP, IMAP, Exchange, Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, godaddy etc...

climber12we wrote:

One at a time:

1. Read what I wrote more carefully. I didn't say it is "the death of the Mail app". I said "it is the death of the Mail app for most business people".

2. Again... business people.

3. It is not effecting only Exchange users. It is effecting all POP, IMAP, Exchange, Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, godaddy etc...

1. and 2. What I meant there was that I'm not sure loss of the search function is critical for all business people, of whom I'm one. I'm sure it is for some, and a big nuisance for many. I might be wrong, perhaps it does affect a lot, but I'm in tech support for 100 iPhone/iPad users, and none have complained about this to me yet. I'm here because I'm finding it a nuisance.

3. Didn't realise that. I'm not seeing duplicates in my POP mail, only the ordering problem, which I think is explained by grouping into hit types.

Let's not lose site of the fact that it all worked just fine before IOS7. If they just rolled back to the old mail search all these problems go away. They deliberately removed functionality that a lot of people relied on, specifically the ability to search by particular fields. The other problems with result order, ghost messages, etc were all caused by replacing the old search module. Certainly it is not reasonable to do business with an iphone if you can't find critical emails, but I would argue it's a pretty significant problem for personal use as well, at least for a lot of people. People I work with are amazed that iphone users can't simply list all the recent email from a given person.

A number of people on this thread (including me) have confirmed that Apple acknowleges many of thes problems, they simply wont fix it. So far the only work around anyone has been able to come up with is to switch to a third party mail app. So on that point, anyone know a good one that works well with major services like google, yahoo, exchange? I think it's safe to assume that any other mail client allows searching by From: or Subject:

I agree that this new mail is not good,someone u get a lot of email during a day,7days a week

That kind of specific search is more then welcome when ur out with your phone.now when i am looking for something it gives me search from msg inside email,it gives me all results where is that word mentioned, its a mess.if i want to find a sender i dont need anything else then that .i am considering to downgrade it to ios6 because of it.

I updated to ios 7 and thought I was going mad, not being able to find critical emails quickly, unbelievable they would remove searching words in the subject line, I can't even think of a way searching the body of an email would ever help you find what your looking for.

I work on the road and receive around 100 emails a day give or take. I rely on my phone to work like a computer when it come to email, the old Apple mail client was sufficient however the ios 7 version is simply not good enough.

I have a win 8 Nokia at home I think I will fire it up when I get back from this trip.

While we are on the topic of 3rd party apps, does anyone know of a one that will let you attach an email as you can do in outlook buy dragging or control c to a new one?(sending an email as an attachment) I thought it might come stock on windos phones but it doesn't

I've been experimenting to try to see what the logic is behind the ordering. So far it looks like it puts them in date order, but grouped in this order (for searches on a full email address, not a name, in my Inbox):

- Hits in the From field that are flagged

- Hits in the From field that aren't flagged

- Hits in the To field that are flagged

- Hits in the To field that aren't flagged

- Hits in the Cc field that are flagged

- Hits in the CC field that aren't flagged

- Hits in the body and subject line

That ordering applied for hundreds of hits on one email address I entered, but there are a handful I found at the bottom that have a hit in the From field, so there must be more to this. I suspect that it might be putting results in the Cc groups if the sender has Cc'd themself.

Can anyone else replicate these results? Remember, you have to type the actual email address - if you type in a first name and last name then it starts finding partial hits and confusing things. You also need to wait until it's finished searching, as it might insert more results in any position.You might also need to scroll up when it's done, as it might not have the first one selected if it has inserted more results at the top of the list after the initial hits.

Also make sure you have Current Mailbox selected, not All Mailboxes, otherwise it'll be searching your Sent Items too, and confusing things.

If I'm right about this, then it looks like flagging an email from someone could help make sure it'll be in the first group of results.

Apple should be adding some group separators that explain the different groupings, if they insist on having this type of search. The groupings are so complex that it just makes the results look random, and not displaying the times doesn't help either.

I did these test on an iPad, but a quick check looks like the iPhone works the same way. I'm not making excuses for how it works, just trying to make sense of it so I can use the results. I'd much rather they let us specify the field to search.

Update below from Apple:

"At this time, I have not yet heard anything. I have been talking to other people in my office and surprisingly not many have heard of the issue as well. Some have however, and I encouraged them to communicate the issue to engineering as well to help bring this problem to light. As soon as I receive an update I will definitely forward the information to you. Please let me know of any further issues you encounter or if you have any additional questions. I am off on Saturday and Sunday but will return to the office on Monday. Thank you again and I look forward to speaking with you again soon. Have a great day!"

I switch to MS OWA when I want to search. Unfortunately, OWA is awful at resizing emails.

Latest update from Apple regarding duplicates and non chronological searches:

I just received a response from engineering. They state that they are aware of the issue and it is currently under investigation. They did not state whether the issue would be addressed in a future update but I will continue to monitor the issue and check in with them if I don’t receive any updates within the next few days. Please let me know if you have any further questions or if there is anything else I can help you with. Thank you again and please have a great day!

I just installed 7.0.4, and this seems partially fixed.

Fixed:

- emails are no longer duplicated

- emails are now in chronological order (flagged emails are prioritized first, then non-flagged)

Not fixed:

- still can't select all emails when clicking "Select" at the bottom right. Selection Circles don't show up on many emails.

So frustrating...

I just installed 7.0.4 and I am still seeing duplicate emails in searches when using MS Exchange...

I've been in contact with Apple support and they are asking that you confirm the issue is completely resolved and if so, please provide the model of device you are using. I will pass this information along to them if you can post to the forum. Thank you.

oh nevermind, ignore my previous post. Everything is still completely broken once the search facility had time to "think" a bit more.

- Emails still show up duplicated

- Emails are out of order

- Email selection doesn't work once "Edit" is selected. Many emails don't have selection circles.

iPhone 5 with iOS 7.0.4

ya - i tried to no avail too - APPLE, hello, is anyone in there????? I knew the spaceship is cool and all - but us minions are still in need to some REAL fixes!!!!!