A common thread these days is that the Apple Mail in Lion does not search correctly, search is broken, or limited.
I seem to have the latter problem. Search works for subject, to and from, but completely fails for message contents.
Mail was imported and all was good when moving to 10.7 Lion from 10.6.8 Snow Leopard - somewhere along the line (perhaps in the Mail 5.1 or Lion 10.7.1) - the search broke.
Searching revealed a lack of a solution that works - everything from rebuilding mailboxes entirely or one-by-one through to deleting envelope files.
Your milage may vary. I've done the following in order of "simple" through more "involved"
Attempt 1:
Rebuild the indexes from within Mail
Selecting each mailbox (as well as those nested within mailbox folders) one by one and choosing rebuild. This is a bit tedious.
Result: fail; no change in search function
Attempt 2:
Force re-indexing via spotlight.
Open System Preferences->Spotlight->Privacy tab
Add the ~/Library/Mail forder
Close and re-open Spotlight
Remove the Mail folder from the Privacy tab list (click on it, and then click the "-" button at the lower left of the window.
Result: fail; no change in search function
**UPDATE:
The following seemed to have solved the problem:
1. reboot in single user mode: hold "command-s" at startup during tone
2. repair file system: "fsck -fy"
3. mount file system: "mount -uw /"
4. change to Volumes directory and remove links (they will be recreated at reboot):
cd /Volumes
- take a look to see if you have duplicate drive entries with a "1" appending the volume name at end.
rm -rfv
reboot
5. Open System Preferences / Spotlight / Privacy
6. Add your system drive to "Prevent Spotlight from searching these locations" list. Press "+" at the bottom of the list to do this.
7. Quit System Preferences
8. Ensure that Spotlight is not searching your system drive (this could take a few minutes)
9. Go back to System Preferences / Spotlight / Privacy and remove the System disk from the "Prevent Spotlight from seaching these locations" list - select system disk, and click "-"
10. System disk will be completely reindexed - this could take a few hours depending on how much data you have there and the speed of the disks.
Take this with a grain salt - as they say your milage may vary.
Searching functionality has returned to Mail !
Report on your findings.
I seem to have the latter problem. Search works for subject, to and from, but completely fails for message contents.
Mail was imported and all was good when moving to 10.7 Lion from 10.6.8 Snow Leopard - somewhere along the line (perhaps in the Mail 5.1 or Lion 10.7.1) - the search broke.
Searching revealed a lack of a solution that works - everything from rebuilding mailboxes entirely or one-by-one through to deleting envelope files.
Your milage may vary. I've done the following in order of "simple" through more "involved"
Attempt 1:
Rebuild the indexes from within Mail
Selecting each mailbox (as well as those nested within mailbox folders) one by one and choosing rebuild. This is a bit tedious.
Result: fail; no change in search function
Attempt 2:
Force re-indexing via spotlight.
Open System Preferences->Spotlight->Privacy tab
Add the ~/Library/Mail forder
Close and re-open Spotlight
Remove the Mail folder from the Privacy tab list (click on it, and then click the "-" button at the lower left of the window.
Result: fail; no change in search function
**UPDATE:
The following seemed to have solved the problem:
1. reboot in single user mode: hold "command-s" at startup during tone
2. repair file system: "fsck -fy"
3. mount file system: "mount -uw /"
4. change to Volumes directory and remove links (they will be recreated at reboot):
cd /Volumes
- take a look to see if you have duplicate drive entries with a "1" appending the volume name at end.
rm -rfv
reboot
5. Open System Preferences / Spotlight / Privacy
6. Add your system drive to "Prevent Spotlight from searching these locations" list. Press "+" at the bottom of the list to do this.
7. Quit System Preferences
8. Ensure that Spotlight is not searching your system drive (this could take a few minutes)
9. Go back to System Preferences / Spotlight / Privacy and remove the System disk from the "Prevent Spotlight from seaching these locations" list - select system disk, and click "-"
10. System disk will be completely reindexed - this could take a few hours depending on how much data you have there and the speed of the disks.
Take this with a grain salt - as they say your milage may vary.
Searching functionality has returned to Mail !
Report on your findings.
Same issue, followed same procedure. Still no search functions in Lion Mail...
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