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With the new mail in El Capitan, when I search for mails from a sender, it does not bring up most of the emails from that sender. This renders the search function in mail unusable.
iMac, Mac OS X (10.0.x)
I think I am mad! doesn't work for me also!!!
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.security.appsandbox UnrestrictSpotlightContainerScope -bool true
result!
-bash: /Library/Preferences/com.apple.security.appsandbox: No such file or directory
Remove characters prior to the back slash “\” and make sure you enter the full string, then try again
This is the string that worked for me and is different from what you posted is:
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.security.appsandbox UnrestrictSpotlightContainerScope -bool true
Sorry, did you also force quit mail? If this doesn’t work you will have to sign out of all mail accounts, move any local folders out to desktop, then log back in everything and add the folders back, this will reindex all messages as well.
I’m not an expert but I would suggest first disconnecting or signing out of those network folders, make sure after disconnecting that the folders are local and on the server with the same number of messages. Once you are sure they are on the server you then delete the local folders. If the local folders disappear (which I doubt) from the local Mac then reconnect to the server.
The basic thing here is that your local Mac needs to relearn so to speak, re-index all the mail once again, the only way besides the shortcut previously mentioned or to remove and reinstall all mail.
A Mac indexes all data so it can be found easily, your search feature too right of your monitor does the same thing but for the whole computer, that search bar will also search all mail for whatever you type. If that doesn’t work for finding mail it’s again an issue you need to fix as described above.
Good luck
I have tried about everything here but search does not work in Mail. I have an IMAP account. Strange thing is that if I setup this account on another mac then search works fine! So it must be something with the MacBook Pro 15" 2015 running High Sierra 10.13.2
- I have applied all updates
- Deleted and rebuilt Spotlight indexes
- Reinstalled OS X
- Deleted the account and added it again
I was thinking there was something with the IMAP account but when I installed it on another machine the search works fine. I am not sure if this has something to do with it but my fans are blowing crazy very often but I can not find out what is causing this. Checked everything in activity and nothing specific is using much CPU.
After I reinstalled OS X it was working partially for a day, now it is back to not working. Any more suggestions? I have read and tried everything here on the thread.
thanks Ferd, so which folder or volume should I drag to the list?
Maestro,
I would recommend the Macintosh HD.
I tried this and when I search mail for a sender it still will not bring up emails from that sender.
You need to re-index Mail.
Quit Mail
Open System Preferences/iCloud and uncheck Mail
Close/Quit System Preferences
<Here I would Restart your Mac, but you probably don't have to>
Open Mail (it should be devoid of all Mail unless you have it checking other Mail accounts like Gmail)
Open System Preferences/iCloud and check Mail
Close/Quit System Preferences
From Message Viewer, look at the bottom of your Mailboxes List
(you may have to toggle it by clicking on the little icon below the Check Mail Menu Bar Item)
You will see your Mail being downloaded from iCloud. This could take some time!
...and when that completes, your Mail will be indexed, and the Search function will work once again.
I am having the same problem - the search function will not work on my mail after upgrading to El Capitan. I tried re-indexing my mail via Spotlight with no luck. I don't back-up my email to iCloud (I have Time Machine backing up to an Airport Time Capsule), so the above method will not work. I even tried manually re-indexing by using the following method:
~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/
Unfortunately, my MailData file contains only one file (Accounts.plist), so this does not work, either. I use the search function a lot, so any suggestions in fixing this would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
Is it possible that the path in El Capitan is actually ~/Library/Mail/V3/MailData and not ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData?
I'm having the same problem. Tried re-indexing spotlight, manually deleting the index files, etc.. but the search function doesn't work at all. Any ideas?
I kept on tinkering both with my Mail and Spotlight searches since neither was working and discovered that for some reason indexing was disabled (in spotlight), so via terminal I re-enabled indexing and re indexed spotlight. After that, I quit mail and erased all "Envelope...." files from Mail (including the ones from maildata in V2 and V3), reopened mail and now everything is working well. I'm no expert so I have no way of knowing if both issues were related but the bottom line is I had no search in mail and no use for Spotlight either, and now both are working fine.
Go to Sys Pref, iCloud and sign out of iCloud, then sign back in and everything should work fine.
If this doesn't work try reinstalling El Capitan: Just power off the iMac, hold command and R and then power the Mac back on. Hold command and R until you see the Apple logo and progress bar. That will boot you to the utilities menu, one of the options you will see there is reinstall OS X. Just click on that, put in your Apple id, and once it completes, try to search.
Apple senior advisors tried both the above options with me and the first one worked.
Mail Search not working El Capitan
