two search problems in Mail

Question

Level 2

188 points

two search problems in Mail

1. I can't do a search in Mail, but I can find the Mail messages I'm looking for by using Spotlight.

2. Spotlight shows me Mail messages that can be displayed in Mail, but cannot be shown in any mailbox.

How do I make Mail capable of searching again?

And how do i get rid of the Mail messages that can be displayed but are not showing up in any mailbox? I tried pressing on the delete button but it does not get rid of it.

MacBook Pro 15", Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Posted on Sep 7, 2006 7:31 PM

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Answer 1

Sep 8, 2006 4:14 AM in response to rickyv

What does "I can't do a search in Mail" mean?

When you view in Mail one of the messages that Spotlight finds, doesn't a Show in Mail Viewer link appear at the top right of the header section of the message?

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Answer 2

rickyv Author

Level 2

188 points

Sep 8, 2006 3:46 PM in response to David Gimeno Gost

What I mean is that nothing shows up when I type in keywords that are existing in my mail. The search feature of Mail brings up nothing even when I know that the mail is in there.

Yes I clicked that Show In Mail Viewer link but it does not make the mail show up in the mail viewer.

iMac G4 1 GHz Mac OS X (10.3.8)

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Answer 3

Sep 8, 2006 3:56 PM in response to rickyv

nothing shows up when I type in keywords that are existing in my mail

Do you select Entire Message when you do this in Mail?

Yes I clicked that Show In Mail Viewer link but it does not
make the mail show up in the mail viewer

Are you sure the messages Spotlight finds do actually exist in your ~/Library/Mail/ folder? Could it be that Spotlight is returning results that are stored somewhere else, e.g. on a backup volume?

BTW, why does your profile say Mac OS X 10.3.8 now? It said Mac OS X 10.4.7 in your first post.

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Answer 4

rickyv Author

Level 2

188 points

Sep 9, 2006 5:13 AM in response to David Gimeno Gost

nothing shows up when I type in keywords that are

existing in my mail

Do you select Entire Message when you do this
in Mail?

Yes

Yes I clicked that Show In Mail Viewer link

but it does not

make the mail show up in the mail viewer

Are you sure the messages Spotlight finds do actually
exist in your ~/Library/Mail/ folder? Could it
be that Spotlight is returning results that are
stored somewhere else, e.g. on a backup volume?

I don't know where it finds it, but when I click on the results, it activates Mail and shows up in a window, but when I click on Show In Mail Viewer, it does not show up in any mailbox.

BTW, why does your profile say Mac OS X 10.3.8 now?
It said Mac OS X 10.4.7 in your first post.

Sorry about that. Forgot to change my model and OS in last post. Adjusted it now. There were the specs of my old iMac.

MacBook Pro 15" Mac OS X (10.4.7)

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Answer 5

Sep 9, 2006 5:24 AM in response to rickyv

I don't know where it finds it

I don't expect you to know that. I do expect, however, that you know whether you have other volumes attached to this computer that could have mail data stored in them (because you've made copies of your mail for backup purposes, for example)...

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Answer 6

Sep 9, 2006 6:38 AM in response to rickyv

Try restricting the search in Spotlight to Home. Does Spotlight still find messages for which Mail fails to display the mailbox they're stored in? In case affirmative, have you ever dragged mailboxes to the Desktop to store them somewhere else or something like that?

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Answer 7

rickyv Author

Level 2

188 points

Sep 9, 2006 7:01 AM in response to David Gimeno Gost

No other volume or drive attached. I only have my mail in one place, in the Mail folder, under Library in my Home folder.

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Answer 8

Sep 9, 2006 7:32 AM in response to rickyv

OK. For some reason, Mail sometimes fails to find messages that Spotlight finds, and I don't yet know why it happens, nor how to solve it. In the few cases I've seen it reported in this forum, nothing worked and the user ended up giving up trying things.

How many accounts do you have and what type are they (POP, IMAP, .Mac)?

There is one thing that might be worth trying to at least make the Show In Mail Viewer link work, but I don't really know whether it will actually make a difference or not:

1. Quit Mail if it's running.

2. In the Finder, go to ~/Library/Mail/. Make a backup copy of this folder, just in case something goes wrong -- e.g. by dragging it to the Desktop while holding the Option (Alt) key down.

3. Locate Envelope Index and move it to the Trash. If you see an Envelope Index-journal file there, delete it as well.

4. Open Mail. It will tell you that your mail needs to be "imported". Click Continue and Mail will proceed to re-create Envelope Index -- Mail says it's "importing", but it just re-creates the index if the mailboxes are already in Mail 2.x format.

Note: For those not familiarized with the ~/ notation, it refers to the user's home folder, i.e. ~/Library is the Library folder within the user's home folder.

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Answer 9

rickyv Author

Level 2

188 points

Sep 9, 2006 11:06 AM in response to David Gimeno Gost

How many accounts do you have and what type are they
(POP, IMAP, .Mac)?

.Mac (IMAP) - active
2 POP accounts - active
.Mac (POP) - inactive

There is one thing that might be worth trying to at
least make the Show In Mail Viewer link work,
but I don't really know whether it will actually make
a difference or not:

1. Quit Mail if it's running.

2. In the Finder, go to ~/Library/Mail/. Make
a backup copy of this folder, just in case something
goes wrong -- e.g. by dragging it to the Desktop
while holding the Option (Alt) key down.

3. Locate Envelope Index and move it to the
Trash. If you see an Envelope Index-journal
file there, delete it as well.

4. Open Mail. It will tell you that your mail needs
to be "imported". Click Continue and Mail will
proceed to re-create Envelope Index -- Mail
says it's "importing", but it just re-creates the
index if the mailboxes are already in Mail 2.x
format.

Note: For those not familiarized with the
~/ notation, it refers to the user's home
folder, i.e. ~/Library is the Library folder
within the user's home folder.

Tried it. Didn't work. A strange thing happened though when it began importing. For a split second, I saw a couple of old email messages show up as unread in my INBOX. Then, when I looked for it, they were not there.

Thanks for all the help by the way. Hope to solve this soon.

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Answer 10

rickyv Author

Level 2

188 points

Sep 9, 2006 11:36 AM in response to David Gimeno Gost

I just got rid of my .Mac POP account in my Mail preferences. It worked to get rid of the email that shows up in Spotlight, but can't be found.

Unfortunately, searching in Mail still does not bring up results.

MacBook Pro 15" Mac OS X (10.4.7)

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Answer 11

Sep 9, 2006 12:03 PM in response to rickyv

I just got rid of my .Mac POP account in my Mail preferences.
It worked to get rid of the email that shows up in Spotlight,
but can't be found.

Ahhh! So that was it.

Unfortunately, searching in Mail still does not bring up results.

Please clarify. Am I understanding it correctly that now Spotlight doesn't find those messages either?

Are those messages supposed to be found in one of your .Mac account's mailboxes? What are your settings for Preferences > Accounts > Advanced > Keep copies of messages for offline viewing?

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Answer 12

rickyv Author

Level 2

188 points

Sep 9, 2006 4:07 PM in response to David Gimeno Gost

Unfortunately, searching in Mail still does not

bring up results.

Please clarify. Am I understanding it correctly that
now Spotlight doesn't find those messages either?

Are those messages supposed to be found in one of
your .Mac account's mailboxes? What are your settings
for Preferences > Accounts > Advanced > Keep
copies of messages for offline viewing?

Spotlight is working well now. But Mail.app still does not show results when I do a search in the application, not in Spotlight. My setting for Keep copies of messages for offline viewing is set to all messages and their attachments.

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Answer 13

Sep 9, 2006 4:27 PM in response to rickyv

In your previous post you said:

I just got rid of my .Mac POP account in my Mail preferences. It worked to get rid of the email that shows up in Spotlight, but can't be found.

Now, you say:

Spotlight is working well now. But Mail.app still does not show results when I do a search in the application

I don't see how this statements can both be true...

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Answer 14

rickyv Author

Level 2

188 points

Sep 9, 2006 4:31 PM in response to David Gimeno Gost

In your previous post you said:

I just got rid of my .Mac POP account
in my Mail preferences. It worked to get rid of the
email that shows up in Spotlight, but can't be
found.
Now, you say:

Spotlight is working well now. But
Mail.app still does not show results when I do a
search in the application
I don't see
how this statements can both be true...

Spotlight used to show mail that is not supposed to be in my Mail mailboxes. When I got rid of the .Mac POP account, the mail that was supposed to have been deleted a long time ago, did not show up anymore. I guess that was because it was part of the POP account. That inactive POP account was probably the problem. So, I deleted it, and Spotlight does not show the supposedly deleted mail anymore. Probably, Spotlight was never the problem. It was just showing items that were hidden somewhat by Mail.app.

When I use the Search feature in Mail.app, it does not give me results even when I know I have the mail that I am searching for. No keyword would work to give me results. I checked some posts here and it seems to be a common problem in Mail.app.

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Answer 15

Sep 9, 2006 4:56 PM in response to rickyv

OK. I understand it now.

The specific problem you're experiencing is not that common. Unfortunately, as I told you before, I don't know what causes it, nor how to fix it. Let me know if you want to investigate it and try to find out what could be going on here (it may be time consuming).

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