yet another "Outlook-does-not-search" thread

[sciuro]

I just got a brand new MBP2017. Transferred my stuff from MBP2012 through my time machine image, everything looking great, but of course Microsoft has some surprises for me 🙁 So my search in Outlook 2011 is not working. I did all the due diligence steps:
- made sure Spotlight has the checkbox marked against "Mail and messages" - didn't help
- rebuilt the Outlook database - didn't help
- created new Outlook identity - didn't help
- forced re-indexing of the Documents folder that contains identity database (drag and drop into spotlight privacy tab) - didn't help

Now, in Spotlight my search actually works - as soon as I type it in, I am getting emails found in the database. So it's not Outlook database indexing that's broken. Still, in Outlook the search returns "No results".

Any ideas what to do?

 

[BrianBaughn]

Did you see this Microsoft support document?

As an aside, I just found this Windows to Mac comparison for Outlook at the MS support site.

 

[sciuro]

Did you see this Microsoft support document?

Yes, and I followed pretty much every advice on it but reinstalling Outlook 🙁

 

[BrianBaughn]

That document doesn't completely apply to your situation as your Spotlight search is finding items.

Removing and re-adding your email account(s) from Outlook or a complete reinstall of Outlook seem to be the only options left.

If you have any "On My Computer" emails or if you account is set up as POP3 be sure to back them up.

 

[sciuro]

In case someone finds this thread and wonders what happened. I wiped clean the MS OFFICE 2011 and re-installed it from scratch (no POP3, but I had some custom macros that needed to be backed up). Then I re-installed it. Search works like a charm now.