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southerndoc

Contributor
Original poster
May 15, 2006
1,918
552
USA
Has anyone figured out a way to get search to work in Mail? I've restarted, quit/reopened Mail, but can't seem to get it to actually search for anything.
 
Has anyone figured out a way to get search to work in Mail? I've restarted, quit/reopened Mail, but can't seem to get it to actually search for anything.
Ugh, I am having the SAME exact problem. I wish I had an answer for you because I have tried absolutely everything.
 
Have you tried the “Rebuild” option under the Mailbox menu? This is supposed to reset search parameters.
 
Has anyone figured out a way to get search to work in Mail? I've restarted, quit/reopened Mail, but can't seem to get it to actually search for anything.

Doesn't it show anything when you search?

I am able to search but it doesn't find everything. I searched for a special word that I only wrote with two persons about. All mails for one address showed up, the others were missing.

The mails that didn't show up were from an address marked as VIP. I just removed VIP from that address and they are in the search results now. I think this problem existed already in Sequoia. I often wondered why I couldn't find some things I wrote with that VIP address.

I only had two VIPs and removed them now.

Otherwise the search seems to work normal for me and I have many accounts in there from different providers. At least it looks like that. It's too much in there to say for sure that it is finding everything now.

I also don't save email addresses in my contacts.
 
I'm glad its not just me that is seeing this. Like others I've rebuilt all my mailboxes and forced a spotlight index rebuild - all with no change in mail
 
I was just about to make the same post. I hope they fix it. It is probably my most used feature of macOS.

In my case, it does find some items but not like it use to.
 
It appears as if the "Rebuild" is just for the selected folders (Inboxes, archives, sent, junk, trash, etc). I did a Rebuild on just my "All Archive" folder and it helped a great deal.
 
My experience is that the Search field used to search all folders, but now it only searches the current folder. So in most cases I need to click on the Archive folder when searching.
 
My experience is that the Search field used to search all folders, but now it only searches the current folder. So in most cases I need to click on the Archive folder when searching.
At the top of the list of folders, when you are searching, is "All Mailboxes". That should search all the mail boxes. I'm not sure what it does now. It seems to be working for me after I rebuilt all of the various folders I have.

Also, once "All Mailboxes" is selected, it stays selected on your next search. This particular thing is not new I believe.
 
At the top of the list of folders, when you are searching, is "All Mailboxes". That should search all the mail boxes. I'm not sure what it does now. It seems to be working for me after I rebuilt all of the various folders I have.

Also, once "All Mailboxes" is selected, it stays selected on your next search. This particular thing is not new I believe.
Oh, I hadn't noticed All Mailboxes when searching. I guess that used to be selected by default, but now it just stays on the current folder, even if I've selected All Mailboxes before. Weird.
 
Oh, I hadn't noticed All Mailboxes when searching. I guess that used to be selected by default, but now it just stays on the current folder, even if I've selected All Mailboxes before. Weird.
Ah... yes. You are right. If you don't change the selected mailbox between searches, then it goes back to All Mailboxes. But if you change folders, then it searches just that folder. That is different from before. I'd rather have it like it was.
 
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