Search feature in mail finds nothing with Mavericks

If I try to find an email in Mail by searching by someone's name or the business name that I know is in the email address it comes up with nothing. I have tried it with all of the different search options. For instance, I was trying to find an email from someone named Katherine. I start typing her name in the search field, and Mail immediately makes a list of people whose names have the same letters. If I select her name, it shows up with zero messages, but I know I have mesages from her in there. Then I tried not selcting her name from the list Mail provided and just typing it in and hitting enter and it still doesn't show up. I am assuming this is a bug. But if someone can tell me something I can change to make it work that would be great. Thanks!

Mac Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9), Mac Mail

Posted on Oct 23, 2013 3:35 PM

94 replies

Jul 29, 2014 5:06 AM in response to KD-ATL

Many thanks for this valuable thread. The Spotlight reindexing cleared up the issue for me, without having to reload Mavericks.

Jun 2, 2015 3:49 AM in response to defghik

While nothing mentioned in this thread worked (I didn't try to reinstall Maverick though), it was sufficient for me to update Mavericks (version 10.9.5). Now searching emails work!

jPhone

Level 1

9 points

Nov 17, 2016 11:04 AM in response to defghik

I know this is an old thread but I found something that worked for me. I have MacMail on Mavericks, running on an MBP. I can't update my OS due to other software that is not up-to date. This fix came from another thread on this topic but I am copying it around so others might see it. Use it at your own risk -- I don't know exactly what it does:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.security.appsandbox UnrestrictSpotlightContainerScope -bool true

You must enter this into Terminal and you must provide your password. After I did this my mail was 100% indexed immediately, there was no delay for re-indexing.

May 16, 2017 11:19 PM in response to jPhone

This did the trick for me, too. (On Sierra 10.12.5)

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

Search feature in mail finds nothing with Mavericks