Mail Search STILL not working!?!

Discussion in 'macOS' started by futureswitcher, Jun 10, 2009.

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  1. futureswitcher, Jun 10, 2009

    futureswitcher macrumors member

    futureswitcher

    Joined:
    Jan 12, 2008
    #1
    I just started using Apple mail to read my gmail accounts, and I'm pretty happy with it other than the fact that the search "entire message" function simply does not work!

    I googled this and I came up with a ton of year+ old unresolved threads on a bunch of different websites - and none of them seemed to have a real solution.

    Is anyone still having this problem? I'm assuming that a fix has been found because I haven't found any newer threads on the subject.

    I have the latest version of both OS X 10.5 and Mail
     
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  2. wrldwzrd89, Jun 10, 2009

    wrldwzrd89 macrumors G5

    wrldwzrd89

    Joined:
    Jun 6, 2003
    Location:
    Solon, OH
    #2
    Several things to try:

    1. The Mail.app speedup trick, here - just to rule out a corrupted Mail database.
    2. Check your Spotlight exclusions - is Mail's folder in your user library, or any subfolders therein, on the exclude list?
    3. Are you searching in the right place? This has tripped me up many times - Mail.app won't find stuff if you don't choose the right search parameters.
     
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  3. Ice-Cube, Jun 10, 2009

    Ice-Cube macrumors 6502a

    Ice-Cube

    Joined:
    Jul 27, 2006
    Location:
    Somewhere over the rainbow
    #3
    Try rebuilding your spotlight index:

    Go to System Preferences and select Spotlight and then Privacy. Add your hard drive (Drag the Macintosh HD Icon from the desktop in there) and quit the preferences. Wait 3-6 mins. Now go back in and delete the hard drive (from the Privacy list). Spotlight will recreate its index and "missing" items will sometimes then show up.
     
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  4. miles01110, Jun 10, 2009

    miles01110 macrumors Core

    miles01110

    Joined:
    Jul 24, 2006
    Location:
    The Ivory Tower (I'm not coming down)
    #4
    Save local copies "On My [Your] Mac." Spotlight will definitely find them then.
     
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  5. futureswitcher, Jun 10, 2009

    futureswitcher thread starter macrumors member

    futureswitcher

    Joined:
    Jan 12, 2008
    #5
    Thanks everyone for your replies!

    I rebuilt my mail database and then rebuilt my spotlight database...and It worked!

    Thanks! I'm not sure which helped, but it wasn't because I had the privacy settings incorrect - I kept those the same.

    There must have been some file corruption or something somewhere along the lines.
     
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  6. mfearon, Oct 3, 2009

    mfearon macrumors newbie

    Joined:
    Sep 24, 2008
    #6
    Fixed mail search problem with OnyX permission repair

    Recently I got mac mail and spotlight working when moving to a new mac.
    Downloaded Eudora Mailbox Cleaner 4.9
    I didn't realize at first that it migrated to eudora to mac mail, not eudora!
    It also moved eudora nicknames to address book!

    But searching "Entire Meaage" didn't work- cuz spotlight was dead.
    tried several fixes- like using terminal -- command to rebuild the index
    sudo mdutil -E -i on /
    always gave "no index" as error

    Loaded OnyX- tried several things to fix-
    what finally did it was an OnyX fix permissions command AND reboot!
    (why fixing permissions from disk utility didn't do it I can't say).
    At boot the mds & mdworker processes started indexing and
    have run for hours-
    and searching "All Mailboxes" and "Entire Message" now works(!)
     
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