Office 2016 Mac Search Not Working



Office 2016 Mac Search Not Working

Nowadays Outlook is the most popular email application that is used to send and receive bulk of emails in an organization as well as personal level. It must be maintained and upgraded timely otherwise many issues may arise. Many times, it is difficult for users to execute and understand Outlook search with updated edition of application. As Search option, is the most important feature of the Outlook application. It helps to perform a specific search of a defined criterion. It helps in navigating through mails and other components quite proficiently. In the following section, we will discuss the trouble faced by the users.

  • I don't know if this relative to this forum or not, I have a problem with Outlook 2016/2019 search, it can't search for a words included in the mail body. It can only search in the subject and sender. This only happens on Mojave clean install only, if I install Outlook 2016/2019 on Sierra.
  • In this case, the indexing of your Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office system data files (the search catalog) may not be complete. To fix the issue you need to rebuild the search catalog, which restarts the indexing of your data files. The search catalog is a file where all of your Outlook and Microsoft Windows items (data files) are indexed.

Mac Outlook users keep on searching for some alternative because of the multiple issues faced by them like email search is not working. Therefore, users want some solution to move from Mac Outlook to Windows Outlook. Now, to do the same in a proper way, you can try SysTools Outlook Mac Exporter tool. It is one of the simplest and efficient way of migrating from Mac Outlook to Windows Outlook in just a few simple clicks.

Problem Description

In Outlook 2016 for Mac, users receive a message “No Results,” when they try to search specific mail message or task items are not displayed in Task folder. Moreover, when users search for mail items by utilizing Mac OS spotlight search, the search is not successful. They face an issue of email search not working in Outlook for Mac:
Outlook mac search not working

Jan 06, 2021 To fix the greyed out search bar, you need to repair the MS Office or Outlook 2016 installation. To do so, follow these steps: In Windows 10 PC, go to Settings Apps. Search and click on Microsoft Office.

Note: While performing the search option, user must be aware of the following facts:

  • Operating system must include Spotlight Search Option
  • Spotlight Search should be synchronized with Outlook 2016
  • When new data is introduced, it takes several minutes for indexing

Causes behind the Issue

Office 2016 Mac Search Not Working

The problem may arise due to following reasons as mentioned:

  • Indexing of Spotlight Search is incomplete
  • The name contains the special characters
  • Profile or its parent folders are in privacy tab in Spotlight
  • Index Search of Spotlight is corrupted

Way to Resolve the Problem

Office 2016 mac search not working windows 10
Until now, we have discussed the issue and causes behind its occurrence. Now, we will be discussing the methods to solve the problem faced by the users. There are some solutions mentioned below which helps to resolve the issue, i.e. email search not working in Outlook for Mac.

Solution 1: Complete Spotlight Indexing

When the user creates new Outlook profile in Outlook 2016 for Mac or they have imported the new data from PST or OLM files. Then the Spotlight indexing is not completed. In this situation, “No Results” message is displayed. To solve this problem, user should wait for a time to finish the indexing and then search again.

Solution 2: Eliminate Special Characters

If Outlook for Mac 2016 has some special characters such as *, /, >, +, @, etc. then, users need to change the identity name by following the steps mentioned below:
  • View Profile Name
    1. Select Go >> Applications.
    2. Click on MS Outlook >> Show Package Contents
    3. Increase Contents, SharedSupport >> Outlook Profile Manager
  • Change Profile Name
    1. Open Identity folder of Outlook 2016 from the mentioned location:
    2. Now, rename the identity name by removing the special characters
    3. Confirm the changes by again viewing the profile name.

Solution 3: Remove the tab of Privacy

If the Outlook 2016, profile folder are added to Privacy tab then, the Spotlight will not index that folder location. Now, remove the location of these folders from Privacy tab in spotlight and wait for the time until these folders to finish indexing.

Solution 4: Fix Spotlight Index Corruption

If the user is still facing problem then, Spotlight index may get corrupted. To resolve this, user needs to re-index the Spotlight Index by following few steps:

Office 2016 Mac Search Not Working Remotely

  1. Select Apple menu then, go to system preference >> Spotlight
  2. Click on the privacy tab and now drag the folder, which user wants to index to list of locations that is prevented from Spotlight search
  3. Choose the folder which is added and remove it from the list by clicking on the remove (-) button
  4. Now, quite the preferences of system and the Spotlight will re-index folder contents.
After following the mentioned solutions, if the users still face an issue then, they can uninstall the Outlook 2016 from Mac machine and again reinstall.

Conclusion

Office 2016 Mac Search Not Working Windows 10

In the above discussion, various methods to resolve the occurrence of issue, i.e. Email search not working in Outlook for Mac is discussed. According to experts, a user can try these solutions as they will surely improve the functioning of Mac Outlook. In addition, all these workarounds help in boosting the searching process.