[HELP] Search for emails inside Mail app not working - But spotlight search for mails Work!

I tried every remedy and was ready to give up, but in another thread wherein Linc Davis gave help, he suggested that the OS be reinstalled...

So, I started up from the recvoery partition and reinstalled mavericks.

search within mail works for me again now... thank God.

I had gone through all options viz

1. deleting Envelope Index Files under MailData folder.

2. Reindexing harddisk under Preferences-Spotlight-Privacy

3. Fresh Install OS X Mavericks

4. Reinstall OS X Mavericks.

still the spotlight under Mail app is not functional. Though it suggests names/ content it doesnt give results in the left pane i.e. Inbox.

Request some expert or Apple Support Team to resolve the matter asap.

Jitendra Pethkar

I finally did a complete format and clean install of OS X Mavericks. I checked the mail spotlight by configuring 1 of my email ids. It worked fine. Then I configured my icloud setup which added all mail accounts. After a while I tried to check the mail spotlight and there it goes, it again failed to search. My mail accounts are IMAP with some older mails retrieved from original POP3 accounts. Unable to find the exact reason as to why does the mail spotlight search fails to perfom its function. Strangely my Macbook SIr has same accounts/ arrangement, but its mail spotlight works absolutely fine while my iMac fails to do so.

Apple Support team hope u resolve this in Mavericks or new Yosemite.

Jitendra Pethkar

this is getting silly now, iv done all the silly workarounds - i should do a reformat and clean install to get a thing on the front end of the application to do what its supposed to do in the first place! how bloody oblique can apple be for flips sake!

Re-indexing the drive did work for me. Dropped the HD into the privacy tab of spotlight preference panel and then removed it. After indexing the drive again the mail search was back to normal.

PS i did try quite a few of other suggestions in here but none worked except the indexing

Thanks so much. After days of re-indexing Spotlight and trashing mail data this eventually worked for me.

have similar problems and found solution in other thread from ( eevokozm)

This worked for me: sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.security.appsandbox UnrestrictSpotlightContainerScope -bool true

Dear Sir,

can an you explain the exact procedure or command line in detail. Would be a real help.

In my case, file '/Library/Preferences/com.apple.security.appsandbox.plist' was lost! I don't know why and when.

Exact procedure is:

1. run Terminal
2. from command prompt do command:

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