Search in Mail

kmar65 wrote:

It seems the Search function in Mail has changed. It no longer allows me to search the body of the message and often does not find an email when I know it exists. Is anyone else having these issues?

Mail

"Improved Search

Search delivers more accurate and complete results and provides suggestions before you start typing."

ref: macOS Ventura - Apple

You can try re-indexing Spotlight—use the hardrive method or from Terminal.app

sudo mdutil -E /

spotlight

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support

Apple claim they have improved Mail search in Ventura. In fact, they just pretty much broke its previously excellent functionality.

With earlier versions, you could start typing a name or a domain, and the search would immediately filter the visible emails to emails from that name.

Now, even if you type an almost complete email address, it will offer just two suggestions.

Subject contains: person@domain.com

or

Attachment name contains: person@domain.com

I cannot remember a single occasion where I have put an email address (or part of it) as either Subject or Attachment in the last decade. Apparently, it is part of Apple's shift towards AI driven searches.

All very well, but back in the world of human intelligence, and users, this seems like a huge backwards step.

The workaround is to make a temporary smart folder and put the criteria you want tosearch on in there, but really? Is that an improvement?

Please Apple, can we have the old search back? It was soooo much better