OSX 10.9 Mail spotlight search not working

A number of people have proposed reformatting disks etc to address the MacMail issue...

Before doing this I strongly suggest to try the following:

Scenario 1: If this works you do not need to do scenario 2...

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist

Scenario 2:

Open a term window (application/utilities/term)

type:

Note: Sudo will prompt you to enter your admin password..

> sudo mdutil -a -i off

> cd /

> sudo rm -rf .Spotlight-V100/*

> sudo mdutil -a -i on

the commands turn off indexing, you then delete the drive spotlight index, restart indexing and reboot your machine to be completely sure. If you have multiple drives cd /Volumes and go into each drive and delete the .Spotlight-V100 directory context.

> sudo rm -rf /Volumes/<drive name>/.Spotlight-V100/*

P.

John,

You do not need to delete and reformat your drive. See my earlier post detailed below:

A number of people have proposed reformatting disks etc to address the MacMail issue...

Before doing this I strongly suggest to try the following:

Scenario 1: If this works you do not need to do scenario 2...

sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist

sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist

Scenario 2:

Open a term window (application/utilities/term)

type:

Note: Sudo will prompt you to enter your admin password..

> sudo mdutil -a -i off

> cd /

> sudo rm -rf /.Spotlight-V100/*

> sudo mdutil -a -i on

the commands turn off indexing, you then delete the drive spotlight index, restart indexing and reboot your machine to be completely sure. If you have multiple drives cd /Volumes and go into each drive and delete the .Spotlight-V100 directory context.

> sudo rm -rf /Volumes/<drive name>/.Spotlight-V100/*

P.

Take care

P.

This fixed it for me! Thanks amigo 🙂

After numerous Outlook identity rebuilds and Spotlight reindexes, a modified version of the repair described by LeKnober finally restored Outlook searching for me. I used step 1 without modification, but for step 2 I deleted the contents of the Spotlight directory as described here: http://coolestguidesontheplanet.com/spotlight-control-mac-os-x-mavericks-10-9/ (using the Terminal command: sudo rm -rf /.Spotlight-V100/*). I am not sure if the second step was needed, but that's what worked for me.

As an aside, my problems began when I installed Microsoft's 14.5.0 update, which rendered my Outlook window invisible. After I was able to restore the window (without the benefit of the 14.5.1 update), I lost the ability to search in Outlook. So for the record, my problems could be pinned squarely on Microsoft and not on Apple.

Well, I just found out something weird to check when troubleshooting a customers iMac with same issue.

You might check the permissions of ~/Library/Mail (when Finder is selected, go-menu, keep option pressed, select Library, scroll down to Mail, +I)

See if there is "_spotlight with "Read only" rights!

If there is not, try and add it by holding 'option (alt)' THEN pressing '+'-sign (scroll down to spotlight (user, not group)), and add it.

The select the "gear" and apply to enclosed items... This makes the folder accesible to spotlight!

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

Hope that helps anyone :/

EDIT: Customer was on 10.10.4, updated to 10.10.5 (no solution), applied the above fix on 10.10.5, You might want to re-index spotlight after that...