Apple Mail is stuck "Indexing…"

arosoft wrote:

1. Search in E-Mail is an essential function for users.

I have a big search problem on all Apple systems with MacOS Sonoma.

The systems destroy the Mail index again and again.

I have reinstall Sonoma on three different systems.

It works after the first setup of the Mail Account until

the next reboot.

Normally the following steps should work (It works on all older systems [BigSur is my oldest in town]

Close the MailApp

2. Remove all Index files in /User/username/Library/Mail/V10/MailData (Envelope Index,Envelope Index-shm,Envelope Index-wal)

3. Start the MailApp

4. Start the Activity Monitor (Mail -> Window -> Activity)

5. Enter something to search

In the case of Sonoma the indexing starts and I can see new index files

staff 9887744 Jan 3 17:37 Envelope Index

staff 32768 Jan 3 17:38 Envelope Index-shm

staff 1487352 Jan 4 08:03 Envelope Index-wal

But the Search does not work and the index process runs forever.

Dear Apple Mail developers, please fix this bug.

My only solution at the moment is the usage of an alternative E-Mail client (Thunderbird).

See the details in the screen shot. But the main problem is that it happens again and again and even

if a rebuild is successful, it needs to much time for users with tons of mail.

Kind regards

Andreas Roscher

Head of IT

Studio Olafur Eliasson

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/1955b4d6-beac-47e0-bed6-06b00b4f6f36

Sorry I do not have this issue...macOS 14.2.1

and never had to jump through all your hoops as presented above...

you can file a bug report /submit your Apple Feedback here: Product Feedback - Apple

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support

Most complete best method I found— Macintosh HD drag & drop method

My best advise:

Uninstall all third party apps that are Cleaners/Optimizers/VPN/Anti-Virus

all known to cause issues on the macOS

third-party sync software like: OneDrive, GoogleDrive, BackBlaze or DropBox

has been known to cause issues as well—disable to compare your results if in doubt

Do you have millions of messages like I do? Problem is always that the developers pretend that we "edge" users don't exist. They make the program work for what they think is a a normal amount of email, but forget to account for folks like us. Drives me absolutely nuts.

I opened a new account, on the same machine using a new username, but with the same Apple ID , and bingo the problem has gone, now looking for the fault on the original account

Happening to me as well

I have a 2017 I mac that never had this issue until updating to ventura. No issues with same accounts on my M1 Macbook Pro.

2.5 GHZ Intel

Ventura 13.6.7

Need a fix

Hello Community,

I'm experiencing the same issue. I have an iMac M1 where email is working correctly; however, on my MacBook Air M1, the search functionality has stopped working. I've tried different options gathered from various forums and communities, such as:

1. Disabling and enabling accounts.
2. Syncing mailboxes.
3. Rebuilding mailboxes.
4. Uninstalling and reinstalling accounts.
5. Clearing mail cache.
6. Disabling and re-enabling Mail and Spotlight messages.

Unfortunately, none of these actions have worked. The search function in my MacBook Air M1's email is still not functioning.

I hope someone from support can help us with this issue. I wouldn't want to switch email clients at the moment.

Best regards, and thanks to everyone for their contributions. Greetings.