Email Search Does Not Search Full Message - It Only Searches The Subject Line !

[iphones4evry1]

This is certainly valuable to know:
"One downside -- in email, search looks for words only in email headers, not in the body of the messages." -Walt Mossberg
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1245...o#mod=yahoo_hs

(I expect Apple to fix this in a future update, but it's important to be aware of, for now)

I tested this on my own. I went to my inbox, looked at text in a message that was not in the title, and typed a word into the search. That message did NOT come up in the search results. (for the most part, this renders the search feature in mail useless - not completely, but mostly)

I just added a poll.

 

[ksmith80209]

I can't even get it to search Gmail properly. I found an email from 6 months ago (waaay past the 200 email limit on the iPhone) and tried to search for the subject line. No dice. I was under the impression that the new Spotlight would search the server as well...

 

[sd2009]

I can't even get it to search Gmail properly. I found an email from 6 months ago (waaay past the 200 email limit on the iPhone) and tried to search for the subject line. No dice. I was under the impression that the new Spotlight would search the server as well...

Only if the server supports it

 

[GfPQqmcRKUvP]

We all knew this. Apple has never tried to hide it. Stop making a big deal about it in every single thread.

 

[GTDaveMac]

I can't even get it to search Gmail properly. I found an email from 6 months ago (waaay past the 200 email limit on the iPhone) and tried to search for the subject line. No dice. I was under the impression that the new Spotlight would search the server as well...

To search the server, try this from within the Mail app on the phone...

If using GMail, go to your "All Mail" Folder, then scroll up to the search field at the top. Do a search, and there will be an option to continue search on the server.

Not exactly intuitive, but it's there.

 

[ksmith80209]

To search the server, try this from within the Mail app on the phone...

If using GMail, go to your "All Mail" Folder, then scroll up to the search field at the top. Do a search, and there will be an option to continue search on the server.

Not exactly intuitive, but it's there.

Thanks. Won't work from the "swipe left" Spotlight?

 

[MaroW]

its so hard to open the mail.app if you know youre gonna search for something inside a mail... pft

 

[Goona]

can you search text messages, if it does, how does it search them?

 

[scionfriar]

The annoying thing I've found is that there's no way to clear the cache of messages that it searches. Example: I had a folder on my mobile me account with messages in it that I looked at. Searched for the sender in the spotlight search, and items came up. I deleted the folder off the server. Gone. Gone from my iphone as well. If I do the same search for the sender, the messages still come up. I've tried turning off and on email from mobile me, and also tried turning off and on the email inclusion of mail, no dice. Phone reboot doesn't help either.

 

[9822679]

OP stop spamming you own thread

its called EDIT

I'm just happy search works

 

[Rat-Boy]

I can confirm that Spotlight DOES serach in the Calendar, and not just the Event Title field.

It found an event when I typed in Gwi and that is because of the location of the event started with Gwi.

 

[ItsGavinC]

I can confirm that Spotlight DOES serach in the Calendar, and not just the Event Title field.

It found an event when I typed in Gwi and that is because of the location of the event started with Gwi.

Of course it searches the event title field! It searches the title, the location field, and the attendees field. This info is from my experience and directly from the Apple website.

 

[MBHockey]

its so hard to open the mail.app if you know youre gonna search for something inside a mail... pft

Even from the Mail application it doesn't search the body of the message. Try it for yourself.

 

[GTDaveMac]

Even from the Mail application it doesn't search the body of the message. Try it for yourself.

Forgot to mention that.

 

[GfPQqmcRKUvP]

The annoying thing I've found is that there's no way to clear the cache of messages that it searches. Example: I had a folder on my mobile me account with messages in it that I looked at. Searched for the sender in the spotlight search, and items came up. I deleted the folder off the server. Gone. Gone from my iphone as well. If I do the same search for the sender, the messages still come up. I've tried turning off and on email from mobile me, and also tried turning off and on the email inclusion of mail, no dice. Phone reboot doesn't help either.

This is definitely not good. How does that make any sense? If you delete messages they still show up in search? Can anyone else confirm this (I'm away from my iPhone and haven't installed 3.0 yet).

 

[iphones4evry1]

can you search text messages, if it does, how does it search them?

Spotlight does not search text messages. I tested it with several different words. SMS does not appear in Spotlight search results. I made a note on the "features for future updates" sticky thread that Apple should consider adding a separate search feature inside SMS App. This way, when you have 100 messages in a conversation with someone, going back two months, you can search for something they said.

 

[iphones4evry1]

The annoying thing I've found is that there's no way to clear the cache of messages that it searches. Example: I had a folder on my mobile me account with messages in it that I looked at. Searched for the sender in the spotlight search, and items came up. I deleted the folder off the server. Gone. Gone from my iphone as well. If I do the same search for the sender, the messages still come up. I've tried turning off and on email from mobile me, and also tried turning off and on the email inclusion of mail, no dice. Phone reboot doesn't help either.

There is a thread dedicated to this problem now.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/723909/

 

[joejoejoe]

I hope Apple fixes this right away. You're right, it renders the search app pretty useless for me. I have a couple thousand emails on one account and another 1600 on my other account. That's a total of over 3500 messages. If I need to find something, there's no way I'm going to remember what the subject was, it's easier for me to remember content.

Don't know why Apple left out this pretty obvious necessity.

Why tease us with "universal search" if it's so useless?

 

[iMrNiceGuy0023]

when you search mail and open the email u find, you cant even delete it, what in the world??

 

[MBHockey]

I hope Apple fixes this right away. You're right, it renders the search app pretty useless for me. I have a couple thousand emails on one account and another 1600 on my other account. That's a total of over 3500 messages. If I need to find something, there's no way I'm going to remember what the subject was, it's easier for me to remember content.

Don't know why Apple left out this pretty obvious necessity.

Why tease us with "universal search" if it's so useless?

100% agree