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I got my iPhone 7 Plus yesterday and I am running iOS 10.0.1.
When I am in my messages and I am trying to search in the search bar on top for a conversation I have with someone, it does not show any search results!
I tried rebooting the phone and even tried hard resets and it didn't help.
My wife has the iPhone 7 and her search function works just fine.
If anyone else has this issue and has a fix, I'd love to hear it.
Thanks
I have had this issue when I switched from iPhone 6sPlus to 7Plus and now the issue repeated itself when I switched from 7Plus to iPhone X.
I can’t search messages restored from backup. This same issue happened on my daughters phone.
I was able to solve it and want to share it.
1. Go to settings, then Siri & Search, then toggle off suggestions in look up and suggestions in search. Turn the phone off by holding the wake button and volume up button and then slide to off. Wait at least 2 minutes before turning the phone on.
2. After the phone is on go back to settings, then Siri & Search and turn the suggestion in look up and suggestion in search back on.
3. While still in Siri & Search scroll down to Messages. Click on it and turn Suggestion in Siri & Search to off.
4. Power down the phone and wait at least 2 minutes.
5. Turn the phone back on and open the messages app. Try to search for an old message. It will not work yet.
6. Go back to settings, then Siri & Search and scroll down to messages. Turn the Suggestions in Siri & Search for messages back on
7. Go back to messages app and try to search for old messages - it should work now.
Hope this helps some people as this has been an annoying issue for me.
I have had this issue when I switched from iPhone 6sPlus to 7Plus and now the issue repeated itself when I switched from 7Plus to iPhone X.
I can’t search messages restored from backup. This same issue happened on my daughters phone.
I was able to solve it and want to share it.
1. Go to settings, then Siri & Search, then toggle off suggestions in look up and suggestions in search. Turn the phone off by holding the wake button and volume up button and then slide to off. Wait at least 2 minutes before turning the phone on.
2. After the phone is on go back to settings, then Siri & Search and turn the suggestion in look up and suggestion in search back on.
3. While still in Siri & Search scroll down to Messages. Click on it and turn Suggestion in Siri & Search to off.
4. Power down the phone and wait at least 2 minutes.
5. Turn the phone back on and open the messages app. Try to search for an old message. It will not work yet.
6. Go back to settings, then Siri & Search and scroll down to messages. Turn the Suggestions in Siri & Search for messages back on
7. Go back to messages app and try to search for old messages - it should work now.
Hope this helps some people as this has been an annoying issue for me.
Was there ever a solid resolution on this? This was from almost a year ago, and I now recently experienced it with my iPhone 6 -> 7 switch.
- I fully backed up my iPhone 6 to iTunes. NOT an icloud backup. Never had much luck with that, so I always prefer a solid, hard drive backup
- I restored the iPhone 7 to that backup.
The messages show up, but searching only gets me access to the new ones that came through the iPhone 7. The legacy iPhone 6 messages are not accessible via search. I rely on this heavily, so definitely not a good thing!
I tried all the suggestions on this post. I am currently on 10.3.2. Appreciate any fresh insights. Thank you.
Was there any resolve to this? I'm having the same issue. I just upgraded to 7 plus and I can search my SMS messages but not my old iMessage messages from before my restore. I can only search new messages sent after the restore. Thanks.
I tried restore it in MAC os(with VMware in windows), it works. itunes backup it to PC first, then wipe your iphone, then restore it with itunes. Seems it's not the ios problem, but the itunes in windows.
I have a same problem on my iPhone 7 Plus. It's really exactly same with the problem above. Now, it became worse. A searcheable range was narraowed down to almost 'a week' from 'days after restore'. I called customer service and talked to engineers but they keep saying they are working on it. They seem no interest in this old problem. My wife's phone(iphone 6Plus) has no problem even after the restoration from iphone 5
This actually worked! Except it’s Settings>Siri&Search.
I turned it off and scrolled down to an off word in a text from a long time ago and then tried to search it. At first when I turned it off and on it didn’t work. But when I tried again and turned it off and then closed out of the Siri&Search and looked for the message it still wasn’t there. I then went back and turned it back on and closed out of Siri&Search and voila.
The take away is that it takes a minute to work. Hope that helps. I have an iPhone 7.
Cheers!
Dave
I’ve spent hours trying to fix this problem—each time I upgraded my phone. I had to wait for a major iOS upgrade which would usually fix it (e.g. iOS 10 -> 11).
Your simple solution worked perfectly. Thank you!!!
Tap Settings > General > Spotlight Search then swipe down and toggle Messages OFF then back ON again.
Then try a search.
Thanks, I tried this but the search bar in messages still doesn't work!
I have the exact same issue. Got the new iphone 7 plus, it came with ios 10.0.2 and the search function in the text message app does not pull any messages older than when the new phone was set up. If anyone has a fix please advise. I have tried language change, spotlight search off, and reset.
Same issue with my iphone 7 plus. I also tried language change, spotlight search off/on, reboot, erasing iphone & backing up from itunes. Still message search does not work
I have had the same issue from the day I got the phone. I have escalated this issue to engineering thru senior level support. I sent case logs and also video of the problem. The response that I got was that the engineering team is working on it.
Hopefully it's resolved soon.
I was able to resolve this for my iphone 7 plus. I changed default account for contacts to icloud. Settings->Contacts->set default account icloude. This solved seatch messages for me.
Not sure what you mean. I only have iCloud and it is set as default
Settings>General>Reset>Reset All Settings
This should not affect your data at all but always have one to be safe. This will flush the settings to default and should get the feature working for you again.
Search bar not working in messages on iPhone 7 Plus
