Mail disable "top hits"

[koelsh]

Hope I'm not touching a sore spot but I haven't come across another recent post about this.

Is it possible to disable "top hits" when searching in the mail app?

Generally I find it annoying and a waste of space. As shown in the screenshots there's 2 hits with the first one being from recent thread that shows a few spaces down anyway and the other hit is generally some random email from the last year. I genuinely don't know the last time the email I was actually looking for was one of the top hits.

 

[circatee]

Not sure of a way to disable Top Hits. But, I don't like it either. Not beneficial to me...

 

[Fred_1]

Hope I'm not touching a sore spot but I haven't come across another recent post about this.

Is it possible to disable "top hits" when searching in the mail app?

Generally I find it annoying and a waste of space. As shown in the screenshots there's 2 hits with the first one being from recent thread that shows a few spaces down anyway and the other hit is generally some random email from the last year. I genuinely don't know the last time the email I was actually looking for was one of the top hits.

View attachment 2219236

I also haven't seen any value it this feature, and it takes up valuable space. not being able to turn it off seems like a huge oversight and it probably takes up processor time doing some undisclosed algorithm that again isn't very helpful.

 

[adrianlondon]

Googling MacOS Mail "top hits" enables one to learn two things.

1) Many people don't want it (including me).
2) It can't be disabled.

 

[iPotential]

Also want it turned off. It's a waste of space and suggests they don't do any UI testing.

 

[droplink]

Hi,
Did anyone find out a way to disable this needless function?
The "algorithm" is doing more missing than top-hitting.

 

[koelsh]

Hi,
Did anyone find out a way to disable this needless function?
The "algorithm" is doing more missing than top-hitting.

I start a fresh search for a solution every so often and still haven't.

Even better as of installing 15.2 searches take 3 – 5 seconds to start showing results. Whereas on 15.1 and prior searches would take 1 – 2 seconds on an M2 Pro MBP on 10GB of email.

 

[BrianBaughn]

Yes…it's stupid…in effect, pushing the actual search results down two spaces.

Additionally, clicking the filter eliminates my actual search results and leaves only the two "Top Hits".

If I turned on "Apple Intelligence" would my Mail app get smarter?

 

[ignatius345]

Yes…it's stupid…in effect, pushing the actual search results down two spaces.

Additionally, clicking the filter eliminates my actual search results and leaves only the two "Top Hits".

If I turned on "Apple Intelligence" would my Mail app get smarter?

Supposedly they're about to release a version of Mail that more closely parallels what they've done with iOS Mail.

I myself find the auto-categorization on newer iOS Mail pretty helpful, but I also hope they don't totally hose all the more powerful features of Mail when they do it (like the MacOS iTunes > Music redesign).

 

[ifxf]

Use a third party mail client, you are not obligated to use the Apple mail program even if your mail server is Apple.

 

[BrianBaughn]

I wouldn't switch because of that.

 

[droplink]

That leads you to another bug; To switch the default mail app on Mac, you first have to create an account in the Mail app, change the email client, then remove the account from Mail...

Apple seems to love to make things difficult nowadays.

 

[koelsh]

Use a third party mail client, you are not obligated to use the Apple mail program even if your mail server is Apple.

I've tried others and each has a list of problems I don't care for.

Top hits and the newly slowed down searches are the only two things I don't care for in Apple Mail.

 

[DeftwillP]

Googling MacOS Mail "top hits" enables one to learn two things.

1) Many people don't want it (including me).
2) It can't be disabled.

I googled the same thing because I wanted to turn off top hits as well. This thread has been the most helpful to realize that apple is not being helpful here. I suppose it's irony that a thread from 2 years ago answers my question, just like searching my inbox would suggest an email from 2 years ago in "top hits" instead of one from say.....last week that is much more relevant.

I'm sure that apple intelligence is going to fix this any day now.