Calendar now only searches in "Today"

[iBozz]

When searching for events in Calendar v11.0 (2811.3.1), it only searches in Today - this indicated by the wrod "Today" appearing in red under the search box. It didn't do this before (but before when I am unsure) and I don't recall, at least knowingly, changing any setting anywhere.

I would have expected the search for Parking to have picked up this event.

Can anyone help me to restore the universal search function?

Thanks in advance.

 

[0128672]

On 11.1 I'm unable to reproduce this. When I'm in the Today view and search for a keyword, I get results on the right into next year for recurring events displayed below the red Today. Is your Parking event recurring, and if not, have you tried creating a recurring event to test with? You could upgrade as well to see if that might resolve it.

Also happy birthday to Gareth ...

 

[iBozz]

On 11.1 I'm unable to reproduce this. When I'm in the Today view and search for a keyword, I get results on the right into next year for recurring events displayed below the red Today. Is your Parking event recurring, and if not, have you tried creating a recurring event to test with? You could upgrade as well to see if that might resolve it.

Also happy birthday to Gareth ...

Thanks, Namara.

I work backstage in a theatre and Gareth was one of the two gigs we had in that day. I didn’t work it but, rest assured, should he come back for any future Birthday gigs I shall certainly pass on your best wishes.

But I digress.

Yes, the parking note was a recurring event but Calendar Search fails to find any event in any Calendar whether recurring or not. It resolutely searches only in Today, as in the real time day, not a selected day in the past or future.

Does Calendar Search work through Spotlight or is it independent? Spotlight does find, in the example of Parking which I used, the Event and it identified the first occurrence correctly reported it as recurring.

I am baffled.

 

[0128672]

Thanks, Namara.

I work backstage in a theatre and Gareth was one of the two gigs we had in that day. I didn’t work it but, rest assured, should he come back for any future Birthday gigs I shall certainly pass on your best wishes.

But I digress.

Yes, the parking note was a recurring event but Calendar Search fails to find any event in any Calendar whether recurring or not. It resolutely searches only in Today, as in the real time day, not a selected day in the past or future.

Does Calendar Search work through Spotlight or is it independent? Spotlight does find, in the example of Parking which I used, the Event and it identified the first occurrence correctly reported it as recurring.

I am baffled.

I don't know what impact Spotlight has and it's a bit difficult to find specific documentation about it. I leave Events & Reminders enabled.

Perhaps it's a visibility problem with that calendar, although the event shows in the Today view. Can you create a new test calendar to see if it can be reproduced? Also, what happens in your search if you simply type the first letter "P"?

Edit: do the correct search results show on your other devices?

 

[Gregg2]

When was the last time you upgraded macOS? I don't mean security updates, which I wouldn't think would cause this behavior.

Have you tried logging in under a different User name? That would probably mean your Events & Reminders would not load, but you could still test the Search function, even if you have to add something to search for.

I wondered about the plist file for Calendar too, maybe being corrupted. Curiously, I have several for iCal, but none for Calendar. (I think some of my iCal ones are necessary -with a random suffix- so I'm testing to see whether or not I need them.)

 

[iBozz]

Hi, Gregg2. Apologies for the delay in replying.

I upgraded to Big Sur a couple of days after it was released, the installation appeared to be "clean" and without any problems. I am now running under v11.1 (20C69).

The behaviour continues under both a different User and a new "clean" User account.

I have reindexed Spotlight but that made no difference.

Oddly, I did once manage a successful search between your post and writing this, but I could find nothing noticeably different in what I was doing and I thought that the problem had self-cured. The usual apps were open and I was doing nothing that i do not do normally. The next time that I searched we were back to Today searching only.

Whether it is relevant or not I'm not sure, but when I click in the Search box it puts a red line around it, something that I do not recall seeing in any other search box, nor can I remember if it did that when working to expectation.

I was reluctant to mess around with plists until the only option left as I didn't want to do anything that would lose any data. Maybe I'll play with those in the absence of any other ideas. Did you manage to prove all yours necessary or surplus?

 

[Gregg2]

My post should have said "unnecessary" instead of necessary. So, I put all of the plists with the random looking suffixes into a different folder. I have not noticed any ill effects in Calendar. Your post reminds me that I can go ahead and delete them. You could do the same. Keep the "mother" plist, but somewhere else. When you open Calendar and thus generate a new plist file in Preferences, you can see if you've lost anything. If so, drag the old one back "home". I don't think the plist file contains data, and that all your entries will be preserved. With any luck, it will solve your searching problem too.

 

[JamesD1946]

I have had the same problem as described above and have been looking for a solution on the Web. Out of frustration i did a search on all future events using ("") and all future events appeared in the right hand column. Surprised, I then went back to the search box and search for a past event. They suddenly all reappeared bringing them all back. Hope it may help.

 

[iBozz]

How do I search for future events?

 

[0128672]

How do I search for future events?

Exactly how JamesD1946 said: type "" in the search box.

 

[JamesD1946]

How do I search for future events?

to search for future event you use two quotation marks "". but in verifying a little further I remembered that I also previously looked at the "spotlight" preferences settings. I noticed in may case that under the "Privacy" for some reason "Big Sur" was prevented from being searched. I have no recollection of ever dealing with eliminating "Big Sur" (my drive's name) from Spotlight searches to it. I removed the restriction and allowed my drive to be searched and all past as well future events are now available and when I start scheduling an event it now also provides suggestions from what you are typing. I suspect the Spotlight Privacy eliminating my drive from searches was the real cause of the problem. Hope it helps.

 

[iBozz]

Yes, I tried using the search box (I don’t know of any other way to search within Calendar except using the Go To Date menu option) and that is how I would normally search but does that not search both fowards and backwards at the same time? I can’t see an option to search only to the future which is what I inferred that JamesD1946 had done.

I typed “” in the search box and it picked up three of today’s three possible events and none of three possible all day events. It also picked up one of two possible events on Monday, 1 March and none of four all day events. It picked up no events before today, between today and 1March or anything after 1 March.

I tried both “” and “ “ and also tried single quote marks to replicate JamesD1946’s interesting results but nothing has restored my ability to search my full Calandar both forwards or backwards.

 

[iBozz]

Our posts crossed, James.

My Spotlight preferences only prohibit searching a specific external drive, not my HD.

Nevertheless I removed the prohibition and then repeated your “” trick.

Alas, neither have worked.

I have also tried forcing Spotlight to reindex but that again made no difference.

 

[JamesD1946]

Our posts crossed, James.

My Spotlight preferences only prohibit searching a specific external drive, not my HD.

Nevertheless I removed the prohibition and then repeated your “” trick.

Alas, neither have worked.

I have also tried forcing Spotlight to reindex but that again made no difference.

IBozz you appear to be using both forward and backward quote marks. i only used " twice (I have a bilingual keyboard with English/French which may make a difference as my quotation marks are straight and not slanted either way as yours seem to appear). I can confirm that Calendar events searches are now available for past events (such if you had a past doctors or meeting event it will come up as you are typing as a suggestion) and as you are typing now appears. You may have a different cause to you issue as I suspect if you type a new event and there is no suggestive event appearing then you still have a restriction of some sort from accessing your event history.

 

[iBozz]

I'll check out the quotes, I hadn't noticed the slant.

I'm using the UK English keyboard and that's just they way they came out. I do have a Cymraeg/Welsh keyboard loaded but that does the same. I'll try other quotes later and report back.

Thanks for the tips.

 

[0128672]

Also about the quotes, try turning off smart quotes under Settings > Keyboard > Text to see if that helps.

 

[iBozz]

The quotes idea hasn't worked(it picked up one future event on 17 February and nothing more) but, inexplicably, full search was restored last night and lost again today.

I have no idea what might have caused either the restoration or subsequent removal. I shall start searching on a regular basis and, if and when it is restored again, I'll try to work out what I did or what happened beforehand.

it is bizarre!

 

[weaztek]

• I'm having the same issue.
• Today, I rebuilt the Spotlight index two different ways
• Adding an event to Today's date and searching for it won't still yield a result in the cal. search
• I'm using the same v. of cal. on a 2018 Mac Mini OS 11.2.1 (newest)

 

[iBozz]

Last night search didn't work, this morning it does. I run 24/7 as I do Folding@Home and the iMac wasn't rebooted between the two events.

I can think of nothing which either I might have done or the system might have done overnight which would cause this difference.

I've had this before, a short return to proper searching then not long after back to only today search.

Bizarre and frustrating. At least if there was a pattern troubleshooting would be easier, but the seeming randomness makes it almost impossibel

 

[weaztek]

The good new with mine is that I can search Calendar on my iOS devices. Just not OS 11.

 

[Manofdogs]

I had exactly this problem. Solution for me was to:

1. Delete all 'cache' files in Library>Calendars and
2. Delete 'com.apple.iCal.plist' from Library>Preferences

(Good idea to drag them to the desktop in case of unexpected consequences - delete later when you're sure all is OK)

None of my calendars would then show (except birthdays and holidays) so I switched calendars off and then on again in System preferences>Internet Accounts>iCloud and all accounts quickly syncronised and everything returend to normal.

 

[weaztek]

I had exactly this problem. Solution for me was to:

1. Delete all 'cache' files in Library>Calendars and
2. Delete 'com.apple.iCal.plist' from Library>Preferences

(Good idea to drag them to the desktop in case of unexpected consequences - delete later when you're sure all is OK)

None of my calendars would then show (except birthdays and holidays) so I switched calendars off and then on again in System preferences>Internet Accounts>iCloud and all accounts quickly syncronised and everything returend to normal.

I tried this on my Mac Mini after backing up my Calendar with an export of the Calendar archive.

Searches still didn't work on the Mac so I restored the old calendar. One day maybe I'll call Apple support.

 

[dogen]

Similar problem. I wondered when I'd had my last tetanus shot. Calendar found a note I'd written about it for a doctor's visit but didn't find the next day's vaccination appointment at a drugstore. I noticed the drugstore appointment only because it was so close to the appointment with the doctor. I rebuilt Spotlight's database several ways—adding a drive in Spotlight preferences and removing it; unchecking and checking Events and Calendar in the same preferences; issuing commands in Terminal—and nothing worked. Spotlight would not show in its search results words from the title of a calendar event.

Here's what finally worked. Because tetanus vaccinations are for every 10 years, I'd set up a recurring event in Calendar. As an experiment I deleted the recurrence and added an event manually 10 years from the first. Voilà: Spotlight found the words searched for in both events. Looks like a bug in Spotlight's integration with Calendar. Has anyone else noticed this behavior?

 

[dnta11]

I just migrated to a new MBPro w/Monterey. I've NEVER had search issues in Mac Cal in all the years since 'iCal' started. I get NO RESULTS, period, no matter if "" or not or ANYTHING suggested. Comes up in Spotlight search but I don't want that to be my option. I have read all of the above. The only thing I haven't done is all the wiping out the cache/plist - which makes me nervous. This photo shows an example. Whether I'm on my actual appt with Yancy, or on Today's page, there are NO results for Yancy. Nor do I get results for any other event I have tried.

 

[ect3]

This worked: Wildsky's suggestion too remove smart quotes option in Preferences/Keyboard/text/use smart quotes (off)
Calendar
Searches are working fine now!!