Mail search misses many items

Regarding searching within Apple Mail
I will search on emails from, say, "Fred Smith" and get a bunch of results that won't include an email that I know that I just got from Fred Smith. Nowhere to be seen. Then I'll scroll down through my messages and find the message... exactly from Fred Smith. But not showing up in Apple Mail search.
Or, and I see this one a lot lately: I'll search "Entire Message" for "Fred Smith" and get a bunch of results that don't include the email that I know is there. Then I'll switch to "From" suddenly the missing message appears.
For me, for years now, Apple Mail is HORRIBLY unreliable in its searching. I still use it, because I like other parts of it, but I don't ever expect the search to actually turn up items that are there...
Anyone know why / what's going on, or how I might fix this, or whether there's a new version of Mail coming with 10.5 that might fix this?

Ooops. I get it. I got to "Mail, Contacts and Calendar" by searching and never saw that it lived under iPhone...

Similar Messages

Apple Mail search misses many items

Regarding searching within Apple Mail
I will search on emails from, say, "Fred Smith" and get a bunch of results that won't include an email that I know that I just got from Fred Smith. Nowhere to be seen. Then I'll scroll down through my messages and find the message... exactly from Fred Smith. But not showing up in Apple Mail search.
Or, and I see this one a lot lately: I'll search "Entire Message" for "Fred Smith" and get a bunch of results that don't include the email that I know is there. Then I'll switch to "From" suddenly the missing message appears.
For me, for years now, Apple Mail is HORRIBLY unreliable in its searching. I still use it, because I like other parts of it, but I don't ever expect the search to actually turn up items that are there...
Anyone know why / what's going on, or how I might fix this, or whether there's a new version of Mail coming with 10.5 that might fix this?

That a message was sent by Fred Smith doesn’t necessarily mean that “Fred Smith” appears anywhere in the message, not even if Mail shows his name in the From column or message header when displaying that message. If you do View > Message > Raw Source on one of the messages that aren’t included in the search results, do you actually see “Fred Smith” anywhere?
and I see this one a lot lately: I'll search "Entire Message" for "Fred Smith"
and get a bunch of results that don't include the email that I know is there.
Then I'll switch to "From" suddenly the missing message appears.
Mail uses Spotlight for Entire Message searches only, and its own index for the rest. What you’re describing here would indicate there is something wrong with Spotlight’s indexing of your mail rather than with Mail itself...
Verify/repair the startup disk (not just permissions), as described here:
The Repair functions of Disk Utility: what's it all about?
After having fixed all the filesystem issues, if any, open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal, type the following command and press <Return> (you can copy the command here and paste it in Terminal):
sudo mdutil -E -i on /
The -E option tells Spotlight to delete any already existing index data (so that it’s rebuilt from scratch all over again). The -i on option ensures that indexing is enabled. Finally, the ‘/’ at the end means “apply this command to the startup disk”.
After entering the previous command in Terminal, you’ll be prompted for your administrator password. Type it blindly (you won’t see any feedback of the keystrokes while you type it) and press <Return>.
Alternatively, you may prefer to reindex the startup disk using the following procedure, but I’ve seen cases where using Teminal worked whereas doing what the article suggests didn’t:
Spotlight: How to re-index folders or volumes
While you’re on it, make sure Mail Messages is checked in the Search Results pane of System Preferences > Spotlight and that no folders containing mail data appear in the Privacy pane.
For best results, quit Mail and don’t play too much with your disk while Spotlight reindexes it, i.e. avoid files being created/modified/deleted, mail being downloaded, etc.

E-Mail search misses e-mails

When using the search function in the mail app (IOS 8.1.3) within "all inboxes" using the name of the sender "Smith" the search delivers a long list of e-mails sorted by date from the newest to the oldest. It shows more results when "All Mailboxes" is active, of course less when "Current Mailbox" (I guess in this case "all inboxes") is active.
I am missing an E-mail in the search result. When I try the search in the correct folder "Archive" the search delivers that particular E-Mail.
Why is the search function when used from "all inboxes" with the radio button "All Mailboxes" not delivering that result. Does it only refer to E-Mails within all inboxes? If yes, how do I search all folders of all mailboxes? The general search from the home screen is much less helpful than the search within the mail app.
Thank you!
niefl

I've been unable to search email "message" body ever since getting Verizon. I can search fine by sender, subject, etc, but when I try to search "message" I get a Verizon error message (not a browser error) stating: "We were unable to perform your request. Please try again." I've called tech support, and they tried to say this is some sort of broswer issue. It ISN'T, because again this is a verizon message coming up, and the other searches work fine. This has never worked in MONTHS, and I'm about ready to switch to another provider, since I need to be able to search my emails. UGGGH......

Mail search not finding existing items

The simple Mail Search tool finds many things in the mailboxes, but misses more and more. When a search is being done within a given mailbox or folder, the search expands (sometimes unreliably) to go through all mailboxes/folders, when this was not desired.
Is the indexing not working? How can this be checked?
What are limits of indexing (number of messages, etc.)?
Mail is open for many hours/day, so time should be available.
Entire Mail Folder is now over 1.3 GB, too big to handle?

I had the same problem but rebuilding spotlight's index fixed the problem. I followed the instructions at
http://www.macobserver.com/tip/2006/07/21.1.shtml
Or Onyx can be used...

Lion Mail search: 'All' search missing some mailboxes - anyone seen this?

Yet another Mail search issue in Lion - at least I have not seen this one documented before.
Noticed in searching Mail after move from Snow Leopard to Lion: a search on 'All' mailboxes misses items that are present in one particular (very large) mailbox, although a search on that mailbox alone finds them. Because we have two Macs, one already migrated to Lion, the other still with Snow Leopard, we can see that a search in SN finds everything whereas the Lion search does not.
But there's more: a possible explanation occurred to us: the 'missing' mailbox was titled "INBOX" (some levels down - comes from an Entourage archive). Renamed that OLD INBOX, and results started coming up (with 'All' mailboxes selected) including its contents.
However: changing the search string to different senders produced inconsistent results. Use one name, that person's incoming mail in that folder showed up with search set to 'All'. Change to another sender, still no results from that mailbox, even tho' (as ever) the messages showed up when the search was restricted to that mailbox.
All very confusing!
What's going on?
Thanks.

Seems to work here ok:

Mail search field is missing - how to get it back?

My Mail search field in upper right went missing. Anyone know how to get it back?

Hi Pacodog,
In Mail goto "View" then "Customise Toolbar" from there drag the search bar back to your toolbar.
Good luck,
David

Archive folder missing from Mail & search not working

I've been having trouble getting the Archive mailbox to appear in Mail. What's worse, often the search function is broken, and Mail doesn't turn up any search results. I've found some ways to get the Archive folder to reappear, but these only seem to help temporarily. For instance, clicking on the gear at the bottom left and selecting "Get Account Info" then selecting the Archive folder causes it to reappear, but this is only temporary and it disappears after another restart or sometimes after an hour or two. The search not working is the worst, as it sometimes is working and sometimes isn't. I don't have any idea what's causing this, but I am at my wit's end because I NEED Mail to be firing on all cylinders.

Hello, and welcome to the Discussions.
What are your selections in Mail Preferences/Accounts/Advanced for this Gmail account, if using IMAP, regarding keeping message for Offline use? The Mail search can only access the list of messages to search Subject, From, etc, but not the entire message unless copies of all messages are being kept on the computer. This would be true for any IMAP account, btw.
More info, please.
Ernie

Missing Mail Search bar

From time to time my Mail Search bar disappears. Sometimes I remember how to get it back, and sometimes--like today--I don't. Anyway, how do I get my Mail Search bar back?

Niku wrote:
From time to time my Mail Search bar disappears. Sometimes I remember how to get it back, and sometimes--like today--I don't. Anyway, how do I get my Mail Search bar back?
That did it, although I did have to try it twice. Anyway, it's back now. Thanks, until next time, and there will be a next time

Apple Mail Search is acting strange

Hello.
I have been having some major issue with Apple Mail (6.5) in its search function.
I have been a heavy user of Apple Mail (over 15,000 emails on the program- and archived every year) for many years, and never had this issue.
When I search for a key word it does not find it! I noticed that this not to work on emails in my In Box or Sent Boxes (Gmail email POP). If I move a specific email to a newly created folder On My Mac and then search, the keyword will be found in the email in that new folder- but never on the orignal Inbox or Sent Box! Also, the search works fine for senders of emails (by name) if I search for them.
The issue is mainly in finding a key word in the content of an email and particurly in the In and Sent boxes!
I tried EVERYTHING I could find online from reindenxing the whole Macintosh HD, deleting Envelope Files... I even deleted Apple Mail and then reinstalled it from Mountain Lion DVD! STILL same issue.
To test things, I exported Mailboxes to another Macbook Air I have (brand new) and then imported these mailboxes into the correct location (Inbox, Sent...etc), and the search there worked fine!
ANY IDEAS, as this is frustrating and I am seriously considering switching to new email client after all these years.
Thanks,

The mail search uses Spotlight to find results, so your problem may be more of a corrupted Spotlight index. To recreate your Spotlight index, go to System Preferences->Spotlight, click the Privacy tab at the top, and add your Boot drive here (usually Macintosh HD). Close and re-open this preference page and then remove the Macintosh HD from the privacy tab.
Within about 30 seconds, you should notice the Spotlight magnifying glass icon in the top menu bar will say it is indexing, and it may take about 15+ minutes to complete. Hopefully that will return your missing search results in the Mail.app.

G/L Account is missing in item data in sales order with reference to quotation

Dear SAP Guru,
I have a problem in accordance with G/L Account missing sales order. Initially, please find the below lines.
1. If I do the sales order without reference to quotation there is no error in G/L Account missing.
2. If I do the sales order with reference to quotation there is an error that G/L account is missing in item data.
I have checked the VKOA, the settings are fine.
Kindly anyone of you resolve this issue.
Warm Regards
Vidya Sagar

G/L account is missing in item data.
Many times, it has been discussed on this issue in SCN and please search with the same text so that you will find many threads asking various areas to check. Take the inputs from there and post here still if you have issue.
G. Lakshmipathi

Mail search doesn't work

Hi
After upgrading to Yosemite, when I go into the search box in the upper right hand corner it doesn't select mail that meets the criteria. I can type anything in and it will find 5462 items and many of those don't contain the search word(s). What can I do to get Mail search working?
I run a Mac Book Pro about 3.5 years old.
David

Quit Mail. Force quit if necessary.
Back up all data before proceeding.
Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. In the Finder, select
          Go ▹ Go to Folder
from the menu bar. Paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V, then press return.
A folder window will open. Inside it there should be files with names as follows:
          Envelope Index
          ExternalUpdates.storedata
Move those files to the Desktop, leaving the window open. Other files in the folder may have longer names that begin as above. Move those files, if any, to the Trash.
Relaunch Mail. It should prompt you to re-import your messages. You may get a warning that the index is damaged and that Mail has to quit. Click OK. Typically, the process takes a few minutes, but it may take hours if you have gigantic mailboxes. In that case, you may be able to speed things up by temporarily adding your home folder to the Privacy list in the Spotlight preference pane. Remove it when Mail has finished importing.
Test. If Mail now works as expected, you can delete the files you moved to the Desktop. Otherwise, post your results.

Apple Mail Search and Spotlight do not work for locating email messages after upgrading to Lion 10.8.3.

Apple Mail Search and Spotlight do not work for locating email messages after upgrading to Lion 10.8.3 on my 27" iMac.
When searching in Apple Mail, sometimes a get a few results (with many missing), and sometimes no results at all.
I had absolutely no problems before with Snow Loepard.
I have reindexed mail and my startup drive. I have followed discussions regarding this matter and tried everything - a waste of time.
This is VERY serious for me - I have many thousands of messages that I archive and need to reference for work and clients, and now I cannot find them.

I found out that I needed a $100 mini displayport to dual-link dvi adapter to make my $30" cinema display work with my macbook pro
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB571Z/A/mini-displayport-to-dual-link-dvi-ada pter?fnode=51
When I found out that solved the problem, I took it back because that was too expensive for a stupid adapter, and it still didn't work perfectly.

IMAP message list and search missing messages

I access an IMAP server from my MacBook and iPad. When I look in folders on the server other than the inbox, the MacBook shows all the messages but the iPad is missing many. When I compare the two, the iPad has all, one-for-one, for the past four days or so. Before that, the list on the iPad is spotty. I have touched the update and download more messages buttons.
Searching on the iPad also misses messages, but different ones. I can search on the iPad for messages I see on the Mac, and sometimes find them, although they don't show up in the message list (for example, the message from about five days ago, immediately before the last message which shows up consistently on both the Mac and iPad). In other cases, I can do a search on the Mac and iPad, and the Mac will show more hits from the search than the iPad.
So, mail on the iPad, at least with an IMAP server, is unreliable. Is this well-known? Will this improve on iOS 4.2?
Thanks for your help,
==Leonard

I did an experiment with the IMAP server I have which stores the mail in mbox format in the home directory of the Linux server I have a login to. I can drag messages in any order I want from the inbox to a folder, and can verify that in the mbox file, they are stored in the order I dragged them in. Yes, those messages are shown in the iPad message list in chronological order, regardless of the order I dragged them into the folder.
But, earlier messages are not shown in the iPad message list in the order they are in the mbox file or chronological order. Well, they are in chronological order, but with big time gaps. For example, the iPad shows a message from April 6 followed by April 1. But, I can see on my Mac that I have many messages between April 1 and 6. They do not appear on the iPad.
Ah, I think I see something. Some of the messages in this mailbox are log files with timestamps at the beginning of the line. The iPad mail program appears to be taking the time from the first line in the body of the message rather than the timestamp in the mail message envelope.
No, it just got stranger. I selected another mailbox, and then went back to the mailbox with the log files I was looking at before and the order of messages has changed! Now there are messages from May where there were messages from April. Still might be the timestamps in the body of the message because those are the first messages shown in the list after the last non-log-file messages.
Now there are messages missing between April 30 and May 4, where I can see that the messages exist by looking in the Mac mail program. I can see that all the missing messages on the iPad are the ones for which the body starts with a timestamp.
Perhaps the iPad has trouble with an IMAP server using mbox format.
Another complication in my case is that the messages in the mbox file are not stored in the order they were received. I suspect this is because I copied them there, using Apple Mail, from previously being stored on my Mac. That is, I had all my mail On My Mac, and then selected all the messages in the folder and dragged them to the IMAP server folder. That put them into the mbox file in an unusual order. But, on the Mac, they show chronologically, regardless of the order stored in the file.
The iPad also does this, for recent messages (which don't contain those log files with timestamps), but the timestamps in the body of the message may be confusing it.

OS X Lion Mail - search feature

Searching through the thousands of emails on my laptop used to be easy with Snow Leopard. Within seconds I would search through entire messages, or who I sent to, or received from, or by subject. That simplicity seems to have been bleached out of Lion. Is anybody else having trouble with email search on Lion or is it just me?

I found another issue with the search function. I've noticed the search results do not include email messages placed in an archive folder I've created on my mac. Only messages which are located in the actual inboxes and sent items are included in the search items.
I can also confirm that the "from" list is incomplete. I've the idea that only contacts which are listed in the MS Exchange directory (of my university) are listed, in addition to my own contacts. Senders which I haven't saved in my contact list are missing.
Interesting to not is that spotlight is able to find the messages which are not listed via the Mail search.
Another thing: "entire message" does not include sender information: for instance, mails from dropbox only show up if I select "From", but not when I select "entire message". This is counter intuitive in my opinion. BTW, I just see that the term "dropbox" is almost always included in the main text, so it should show up, even if "entire message" does not search through the "From" section.
I find the new search function quite horrible to use. I hope someone is able to point out what I'm doing wrongly.
UPDATE:
I just created a new mailbox and moved a couple of "old" (pre-lion-received) messages which I was not able to find previously into the new mailbox and guess what happened: I now am able to find via the search funciton
UPDATE 2:
I think something went wrong when I upgraded to Lion. I've rebuilded all my old mailboxes and it now works fine. You can do the same by selecting your mailbox and click Mailbox -> Rebuild.
Message was edited by: Morrey

Mail Search Methodology Help

i am doing a little reading after having done a lot of "experimenting" with search in Mac Mail and i think i am still missing something.
i put my search terms in the top right and they autocomplete with (apparently) suggestions for "FROM" and "SUBJECTS".
1. are there other options such as /content/ or some other search criteria that i can use here?
2. is there a way to get into a Finder window such as i do in Spotlight when i pull up "Show in Finder"?
3. is there a way to do this search in finder so that it gets exactly the same (more?) results?
how do i determine WHERE i am searching? i have about ten email accounts and fifty folders (and a gajillion emails) in the On My Mac section.
4. is there a way to search /everything/? i mean, i so see that i have "Search:" - "Inbox" "Drafts" "Sent" "Notes" and "Flagged" showing on the top LEFT side? but HOW IS THIS SELECTED? is it selected? if i click on the TRASH FOLDER northing is selected on the top LEFT but is it only searching the Trash at this point?
5. if i click on "Sent" i see that "Sent" is selected on the top left and i assume (?) it is only searching Sent folder at this point?? what about if i click on or some random folder in the ON MY MAC SECTION? i mean, i /cannot/ select the "ON MY MAC" title because it is greyed out and at one point i thought i saw something like "On My Mac" or whatever suddenly pop up on the top left when i selected some random folder but am i searching this folder or am i searching all of the On My Mac section?
i am uber (like totally) confused by this UI at this point and i am suddenly realizing why i am having so much trouble. this is because i am clueless as to how this tool is working.
THANKS in any advance for any edification or at least for clearing some of the smog/fog from in front of my face.

1. It will only offer categories where the search term appears. If you spotlight index is flaky, you might not be seeing some options. I think a lot of people get really frustrated with the search function when their Spotlight index is not complete. You can use header names and such in the search by typing the header, colon, then search term. E.g. "subject: lunch" It likes lower case for tokens, and you need to put a space after the colon.
2. & 3. Not that I know of. However, you could go into the Finder, navigate into your Library/Mail/V2 folder and Cmd-F. Then you will be searching in the Mail folder (depending on your Search prefs in Finder). It will find messages and attachments.
4. The search location should be indicated (highlighted) in the favorites bar. I think it defaults to All, but you can choose any of the other things you have in the Favorites bar. However, it may switch to All if it can't find anything in the selected mailbox.
5. From what I can tell, if you select a folder in the ON MY MAC list, it will stop searching. You have to use the things you have in Favorites bar, but see the item in help about searching a mailbox.
I think the Help gives some good info:
Search messages
You can quickly search messages to find specific text, messages to or from contacts, attachments, or more. You can search messages in all mailboxes or specific mailboxes, and save searches to use again.
In the Search field in the Mail toolbar, start typing your search text.A list of suggestions appears under the Search field, and the Search bar appears in the toolbar.
Suggestions are organized into categories and depend on your search text. They might include “Message contains:,” People, Subjects (includes the subject field and instances of the text you typed), Status (if you typed a status like “unread” or “flagged”), Mailboxes (if you typed the name of a mailbox), Attachments, or Dates.
The Search bar highlights the mailbox being searched. For example, All, Inbox, or another mailbox.
Select a suggestion.The suggestion appears as a token in the Search field. For example, the suggestion Entire Message, which includes the address fields and the subject line, is shown as Any in the Search field.Mail also lists any messages from the highlighted mailbox that match the token. If there are no matches, Mail displays a “Search all mailboxes” suggestion that you can select to widen your search.
If needed, change your search to vary the results:
Search a specific mailbox:
Click a mailbox in the Search bar. To search a mailbox that’s not shown, start typing a mailbox name in the search field.
Search several mailboxes at once:
To search mailboxes that aren’t shown, start typing a mailbox name in the search field, choose the “Message contains:” suggestion, and then choose Mailbox from the token’s pop-up menu. Repeat for each mailbox. Or select the mailboxes in the sidebar before starting your search, and then click Selected Mailboxes in the Favorites bar.
Change a token’s focus:
Click the token’s arrow to display a pop-up menu of options, or select the token and press Option-Tab until you see the option you want. For example, if you chose a suggestion from the People category, you can change the focus to search for messages to or from that person, or search entire messages for that person.
Quickly create a token:
Type the name of a message header field, followed by a colon and a value. For example, type “from: susan park” and press Enter to create the From token and list messages from Susan. Or type “subject: lunch” and press Enter to create the Subject token and list messages with “lunch” in the subject.
Use multiple tokens:
After a token, start typing search text, and then choose a suggestion. Repeat for each item you want to search for. The search field scrolls as you add more tokens. Mail searches for messages that match all of the tokens; the more tokens you use, the narrower the search.
Use Boolean searches:
You can use Boolean operators such as AND, OR, and NOT. For example, to search for messages that contain “yosemite” and “yellowstone” but not “teton,” type “yosemite AND yellowstone NOT teton” or “yosemite AND yellowstone -teton.” You must type Boolean operators in uppercase.
Save a search:
Click Save in the Search bar to save a search as a Smart Mailbox.
If you use the Any token or search in all mailboxes, Mail finds messages containing words that have the same prefix, or the same beginning letters, as any of the words you typed in the Search field. The words can be in any order. For example, if you type “box” in the Search field, the results will include “boxcar” but not “mailbox.”
To include the Trash and Junk mailboxes, and encrypted messages, when you search all mailboxes, choose Mail > Preferences, and then click General.
For best search results for Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) and Exchange accounts, make sure the “Keep copies of messages for offline viewing” option is set to “All messages and their attachments” on the Advanced pane in Mail account preferences.

Mail search misses many items

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