Mail App in Lion OS X

[lbeck]

I'm digging the mail app in Lion, not sure if I like it enough to switch from Gmail, I've been using that for 10 years now. Anyway, one thing that definitely won't allow me to switch is the search function.

Right now, no search results are coming back to me. Anything I search for shows up empty handed, even a specific email in my inbox.

Anyone else experience this?

 

[cas85]

no my search function seems to work fine. the only thing i can suggest is to make sure it's searching the right inbox. for example, i was searching for a personal email in my .edu address inbox, and it didn't show. then i remembered to switch it to my gmail inbox. if you have an inbox selected when you search, thats what it searches and you have to tell it to search more on the top menu bar.

 

[mgridgaway]

Why not have mail access gmail via imap?

 

[Maccleduff]

Try going to the menubar Mailbox > Rebuild
It should reindex all your emails and hoepfully make search work again

 

[lbeck]

Why not have mail access gmail via imap?

Thats exactly what I'm doing. I set up my gmail account via mail. I just like the interface of gmail better.

I'll try to rebuild my mail index, that has to be it. I get zero results no matter what I do. And yes, I'm searching the correct spot, even tried search "all mail" and get nothing.

Let me try this ...

 

[lbeck]

Nope, didn't work at all. Something is wrong, no search results show up. Maybe I'll delete my account and set it up again. What do you think?

 

[Maccleduff]

Nope, didn't work at all. Something is wrong, no search results show up. Maybe I'll delete my account and set it up again. What do you think?

Has spotlight finished indexing? If its still going the spotlight icon in the top right will have a dot in it. Thats the only thing i can think of so far...

 

[lbeck]

Has spotlight finished indexing? If its still going the spotlight icon in the top right will have a dot in it. Thats the only thing i can think of so far...

Yeah it finished indexing awhile ago. I just deleted my gmail account, closed out Mail.app. Reopened it and set up my account again. Voila!, it works as it should.

Maybe all my mail didn't come through or something, but it woks now. thanks for help!

 

[lbeck]

I do have another question though ... I don't want all my mail stored on my hard drive. I prefer to keep it all in my gmail account online. I just want to use Mail.app to view that email.

Is that possible to not store all my mail on my hard drive? If so, how do I do that?

 

[Maccleduff]

I do have another question though ... I don't want all my mail stored on my hard drive. I prefer to keep it all in my gmail account online. I just want to use Mail.app to view that email.

Is that possible to not store all my mail on my hard drive? If so, how do I do that?

Yes I think so.

Go to Mail > Preferences > Accounts
choose your gmail account
In advanced settings where it says Keep copies of messages for offline viewing, choose, Don't keep copies of any messages.

I think that should do it.

 

[Maccleduff]

Note: I fyou do choose this option I dont know if the search function will work? Havent tried this myself.

Any reason why you dont want copies of your email?

 

[lbeck]

Yes I think so.

Go to Mail > Preferences > Accounts
choose your gmail account
In advanced settings where it says Keep copies of messages for offline viewing, choose, Don't keep copies of any messages.

I think that should do it.

Thanks, I just found that myself. A problem raised though, if I have that option selected, then my search results are incomplete. I guess you have to download all the mail to be able to successfully search it.

Does that sound right?

 

[Maccleduff]

Thanks, I just found that myself. A problem raised though, if I have that option selected, then my search results are incomplete. I guess you have to download all the mail to be able to successfully search it.

Does that sound right?

Yeah I think youre right: see my reply above

 

[lbeck]

CRAP! You're right! I don't want all my mail because I have a SSD for boot and would prefer to not fill it up. My gmail account has 30GB of mail, and it grows every month.

 

[Maccleduff]

CRAP! You're right! I don't want all my mail because I have a SSD for boot and would prefer to not fill it up. My gmail account has 30GB of mail, and it grows every month.

In the advanced mailbox settings, tick the compact mailbox option, it might help, or just use the download message headers only, and omit the attachements. 30gb of email is quite impressive!

 

[h4lp m3]

My search function is also broken, but in a different way than yours.
Normally if you highlight a mailbox and do a search, it will only search in that mailbox. Now it wants to search all 8 of my mailboxes. CrAzY?!?!

 

[mikdog]

for what its worth i turned of having mail keep ANYTHING on my hard drive. Seems to work better now.