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dpdpdp Author

Level 1

71 points

Mail Search & Smart Folder bugs in Mavericks still not fixed in Yosemite?!

When Mavericks was introduced, Smart Folders and Search stopped working correctly for me, and for many many others. There were many threads about it, including a few fixes that would work for a short time - but always the problem would come back.

The problem:

Smart Folders would stop displaying all or some of the messages that they should, and Search within Mail would stop delivering all or some of the messages that it should. I am not discussing Maverick's problems with Gmail, but rather a different long-standing problem with plain IMAP accounts.

Temporary fixes that never stick:

A temporary fix that worked for a while is deleting the "Envelope Index" files in ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData and letting Mail rebuild the index. But always the problem recurs in a matter of hours or occasionally a day or two. Using "rebuild" on invidual mailboxes would also fix it for a short while, but again the fix was always temporary. Another fix that would work for a short time is reindexing the mail folders in Spotlight, via Terminal -- but again the fix was always temporary.

Other symptoms:

1. Outside Mail, Spotlight has no problem finding the mail messages that it cannot find within Mail.

2. When deleting Envelope Index files and letting them rebuild when Mail is launched, temporary Envelope Index files are created (I assume this is normal) and not deleted at the end of the process (which I assume is not expected behavior).

3. And yes, this problem did not occur before Mavericks.

I am utterly astounded to see that the problem has not been fixed in Yosemite. For a day or two, I had some hope the problem was gone, because Mail was working correctly for a while, but no -- the problem is still there in exactly the same form. Exactly the same fixes work in exactly the same very temporary fashion.

And yes, I (and many others, I think) filed Mavericks bug reports about this.

With this message, I am mainly reality-checking to see if I am the only one (unless someone has a new magic solution to offer). I am really fed up. Can anyone suggest anything (besides switching to another Mail client -- I have reasons for needing to stick to Apple Mail).

Mac Pro 2008 & MacBook Pro 2013, Yosemite 10.10

MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Posted on Oct 18, 2014 2:14 PM

21 replies

ando84

Level 1

0 points

Apr 28, 2015 5:44 PM in response to andreyfromekaterinburg

Worked a treat, thankyou.

May 8, 2015 9:23 AM in response to dpdpdp

I had the same problem but realized that I was tinkering with turning on and off Spotlight search a while ago (over a month ago). I think I rebooted my machine when this problem started. So I had to manually turn spotlight back on with the following commands in terminal:

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

followed by

sudo mdutil -a -i on

After that, all was fixed. All other ways of trying to get spotlight to reindex, etc failed because spotlight was not even allowed to run. You can tell this by doing a spotlight search and typing something into the spotlight search box. If you think you are reindexing and an "indexing" progress bar isn't there, spotlight isn't indexing.

Another indication that spotlight isn't running or hasn't indexed, is by looking at the "About this Mac" "Storage" tab. If the bar for your disk is all one color (usually the blue "other") your disk has not been indexed and spotlight may not be running.

--Ed

elarea

Level 1

4 points

Aug 5, 2015 11:07 AM in response to eevokozm

Thanks !

vexedone

Level 1

4 points

Sep 10, 2015 11:37 AM in response to andreyfromekaterinburg

This has been driving me insane! Your solution worked! Thanks

Sep 23, 2015 6:53 AM in response to eevokozm

Fantastic! Thanks a lot!

dpdpdp Author

Level 1

71 points

May 5, 2016 1:48 PM in response to frappleman

Not sure why (or how) you declared my problem solved. Sadly, it isn't — all these months later. On two new machines, and even having changed servers, I have exactly the same problems I have had since Mavericks. Exactly the same suggested solutions continue to help for short periods of time, but the problems always recur.

Mail Search & Smart Folder bugs in Mavericks still not fixed in Yosemite?!