Fixing Email Search Not Working in Outlook for Mac

---

Outlook is one of the most powerful email apps that help managing, sending and receiving mails systematically. It is trusted by both personal and industrial purposes. Like other email management tools, it also needs upgrading and maintenance from time to time to make it run smoothly. Many times, it is tough for users to execute Outlook search, especially when they upgrade the app. As you know search option plays an important role in the Outlook app. It assists users to locate a specific mail without getting any delay. But sometimes, email search fails to work properly. How to fix the error?

Let's know!

Problem Facing

In the 2016 version of Outlook for Mac, users get the message 'No results" while they were trying to locate a specific mail message or a task item in the task folder. They face the issue that email search is not working in Outlook for Mac. Watch out the following facts when you use the Search option in Outlook:

• Operating system must have Spotlight Search option
• Spotlight Search should be synchronized with Outlook 2016
• Remember when a new data is included it takes a few minutes to index

Reasons of the Issue

The problem is caused due to several reasons.

• It may be due to incomplete spotlight search
• It is causing because the name holds special characters
• The parent folders or profile may be in privacy tab in spotlight
• Corrupted index search of Spotlight

How to Fix the Email Searching Problem in Mac Outlook

Here we are going to tell the solutions to get out the problem.

Fix the Problem- Solution 1

Complete Spotlight Indexing:- When you create a new outlook profile in Outlook 2016 for Mac or migrate from Outlook for Windows to Outlook for Mac, at that time the Spotlight indexing is not finished. In the time, when you search, it shows no results. To resolve the problem wait for a while and then search.

Fix the Problem- Solution 2

Removing Special Characters- If Outlook for Mac carries special characters like +, =, %, # etc then it needs to replace the name by following the steps:

Go to Profile Name

1. Choose Go then Application
2. Press MS Outlook and then Show Package Contents
3. Increase Content, Shared Support and then Outlook Profile Manager

Changing Profile Name

1. Access Identity folder of Outlook 2016 from the mentioned location
2. After that rename the identity name by removing special characters
3. Confirm changes by revisiting the profile name

Fix the Problem: Solution 3

Removing the Privacy Tab: In case, profile folder is added to privacy tab the Spotlight will fail to index the folder location. Now, remove the location of these folders from Privacy tab in Spotlight and wait for the time period till these folders indexed.

Fix the Problem – Solution 4

Fixing Spotlight index Corruption

If the following measures seem useless, it may possible that the Spotlight is corrupted. Fix the problem by re-index the Spotlight:

1. First go to Apple menu and then 'System Preference' and Spotlight
2. Press 'Privacy' tab and then you will have to drag the folder that users wants to index from the location which is prevented from 'Spotlight search'
3. Select the folder which is added and then remove it by pressing the tab 'Remove'
4. After that quite the preferences of system and now the Spotlight will be re-index

Note:- These are helpful methods to fix the issue. If you find them helpful, inbox us.

---