Mail search by word not working with macOS Monterey

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Level 1

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Mail search by word not working with macOS Monterey

What has gone wrong with apple mail? There seems to be no option to conduct a word search across all messages in all folders. I am using an M1 MacBook running OS12.1

I want to find any and all messages containing a specific word but this is no longer possible. It worked perfectly for a decade or more, but no longer. Even worse, if I restrict the word search to a specific folder, it fails to find messages even when I am 100% certain such messages exist.

As if to add insult to injury, the app automatically creates a "smart mailbox" based upon the search results. These should be called "stupid mailboxes" because they are all failed searches and why would I want a permanent folder created for a temporary search. All I want are the results – THE CORRECT RESULTS.

I'm dying for someone to explain to me how this is an improvement in the apps performance. I see it as having taken something I rely upon and rendering it totally useless. Are you having success searching mail messages? If so, please tell me how you are doing it. Thank you.

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 12.1

Posted on Dec 31, 2021 2:10 PM

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Answer 1

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Barney-15E

Level 10

116,782 points

Jan 1, 2022 7:54 AM in response to rick_de

I'm dying for someone to explain to me how this is an improvement in the apps performance. I see it as having taken something I rely upon and rendering it totally useless. Are you having success searching mail messages? If so, please tell me how you are doing it. Thank you.

I'm not sure I can explain because I can't get Mail to do any of what you say yours does.

It does search the currently selected mailbox, and I can click on All to search all, and it does provide a couple of "top hits" which are generally not what I'm looking for, but otherwise it searches for the word I type into the search field.

If I do select All as the search scope, the next search will search all if I haven't changed the mailbox selection.

I can't even figure out how I would create a smart mailbox from the search field if I wanted that to happen.

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Answer 2

rick_de Author

Level 1

20 points

Jan 1, 2022 5:32 PM in response to Barney-15E

Thank you for sharing your experience.

In purchasing this new laptop I'm jumping from a laptop running an OS from six years ago and struggling to learn all that has changed over that many years. In that older OS, the search was controlled by selections within the toolbar which motivated me to use "+" icon in this new OS toolbar but that appears to have been wrong.

Your reference to "selected mailbox" made me realize that I can simply click on the mailboxes I needed to search. It is ridiculously easy now that I know it but it is also very different from the way it was previously and therefore did not occur to me. Thank you very much for the help.

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Mail search by word not working with macOS Monterey

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