Recreate Mail.app Search Index?

Question

It seems that the search index for my Mail.app has been corrupted. I have 4 years of emails, but when searching via the built-in search in Mail.app it always returns no results. Anyone have any idea how the search index can be rebuilt or recreated in Mail.app on OS X?

Answer 1

Prior to Lion Mail keeps its database at ~/Library/Mail/Envelope Index. For Lion it's ~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/Envelope Index.

It's a sqlite database. To regenerate the entire file simply quit mail then delete the file. Mail will create a new one at next launch (it may take a while depending on the size of your mailboxes).

Caveate: I've only done this prior to Lion. I see in my MailData directory there are several files on Lion I'm not familiar with, so it may behave differently. You're responsible for backing up your own data before nuking anything.

Answer 2

If the ~/Library/Mail/Envelope Index trick does not work, which it did not for me there are a number of other steps one can take to rebuild the mail search index, some outlined here: http://www.chriswrites.com/2012/02/find-missing-emails-in-mac-os-xs-mail-app/

1. try mdimport -r /System/Library/Spotlight/Mail.mdimporter in the Terminal

2. try sudo mdutil – E in the Terminal (admin password required), or via the Spotlight preferences, add the whole computer to the 'Privacy' list of excluded folders, then remove it; both actions will force a recalculation of the spotlight index

3. in my case, all the above failed to do anything, and I got an error message when trying to change the Spotlight privacy settings, indicating my whole index was really messed up. The solution was to type the following in the Terminal:

   sudo mv /.Spotlight-V100 /Spotlight-V100-old

   and then restart the computer, to force a reindex of the machine. You can also then clean up the folder "Spotlight-V100-old" that will now appear on your hard drive.

   This third nuclear option also requires admin privileges.