David Williams Technical

This document outlines steps when the search function on Apple’s Mail App is not working properly.

Mac mail search not working is a typical Mac error that often occurs after updating to a newer macOS version. Typically, this occurs with the x64 OS in my experience and when a user has a large or multiple mailboxes. If you encounter the Mac mail search not working error, the search feature in your Mailbox app would not work properly.

Log out and then log back in

The simplest of fix methods is to simply log out of your email account in the Mailbox app, then restart your Mac, and log back in. Then try to use the Mailbox search to see if it functions properly now.

Shift-launch Mail

Restart your Mac, go to your Applications folder, hold-down Shift, and open the Mail app. Now exit the app, wait for several seconds, and Shift-launch it again. Next, restart your Mac one more time and launch the app normally. Shift-launching any app would make it “forget” its state when it was last used, hopefully fixing any minor bugs that may be causing the search to not function properly.

Select in which folders to search

If you have a lot of emails spread across your different mail folders, you may make the search more effective and efficient by manually picking which folders you want to search if you know where the letters you are looking for are located. To do this, open the Mail app, hold down shift, and select the folders in the left panel in which you want to search. After that, type your search phrase and see if you get the expected results.

Rebuild your mailboxes

Rebuild your mailboxes

One thing that may help you with the mail search problem is to rebuild each of your mailboxes. Note that the next steps must be performed for each of the mailboxes in your Mail app.

1. Start the Mail app and select from the panel to the left a mailbox that you want to rebuild.
   • If the panel with mailboxes isn’t visible, select View from the menu bar, and click the Show Mailbox List option. Alternatively, you can also press Shift + Command + M.
2. Once a mailbox has been selected, click Mailbox from the menu bar, and click Rebuild.

Rebuild Mail and Spotlight Indexes

This troubleshooting method is not as commonly used to solve this problem and may not work for everybody. That said, it’s still worth the try if you’ve gotten this far with this guide and the search issue is still there. Here is how to rebuild your Mac’s Mail and Spotlight indexes.

1. Close the Mail app and go to the following folder (you can copy-paste its address in Spotlight, quickly go to it): ~/Library/Mail/V8/MailData.
2. In that folder, there should be three files with names that start with “Envelope”. Remove them from that folder.
   
3. Start the Mail app again – it will automatically create a new version of the deleted items. The idea is that if the files that you deleted were corrupted, thus resulting in the search not working problem, their corrupted versions would be replaced with new ones that won’t trigger the issue.
4. Next, you must go to Apple Menu > System Preferences > Spotlight and there uncheck the Mail & Messages option.
   
5. Close System Preferences, wait for a couple of minutes, then go back to the Spotlight settings and re-enable the Mail and Messages option.

Disable and Re-enable your Gmail account

1. Open the Apple Menu and go to System Preferences again.
2. Click on Internet Accounts and select your Gmail (Google) account from the left.
3. Untick the Mail checkbox in the right panel.
   
4. Close System Preferences and restart your Mac.
5. Go back to System Preferences > Internet Accounts > Gmail (Google) and check the Mail option.

Re-index Spotlight Search Using Terminal on Mac

The Spotlight is a search feature on your Mac that manages the index of all items and files stored in the system. This feature ensures that all your data and files are tracked properly for future access.

An issue with the Spotlight on your Mac can also create issues with the Mail Search. You can opt to re-index Spotlight Search to get rid of any bugs or errors affecting its capabilities.

You can follow the given steps to Reindex Spotlight Search using Terminal:

1. Press on Launchpad on your Mac.
2. Search for Terminal on your Launchpad’s search bar. Launch the program.
   
3. Once Terminal is launched, type sudo mdutil -i on / and press enter on Mac.
   
4. Type in your Mac User Password when prompted to and press enter.
5. The Indexing of the Spotlight is now enabled. Restart your Mac and launch Mail to check if the problem has been resolved.