Mail search broken but spotlight working

[badsimian]

I am having a strange issue with 10.15.2 and Mail search. It was completely broken before the last update but now it just seems inconsistent with the results it finds. If I do the same search in Spotlight then it shows me all the results I would expect.

Anyone finding a similar issue?

 

[haralds]

Mail also uses Spotlight.
The easiest way to reset the Spotlight index is to add your disk with your users accounts to the Privacy tab in Preferences>Spotlight. It might warn you that search does not work.
Close the panel and then open it again and delete the disk you just added.
This should generate a new index.
If that still does not help your user permissions might be incorrectly set.

Look to the bottom of this page for more info:
https://appletoolbox.com/fix-corrupt-user-accounts-macos/

 

[badsimian]

I am not sure it is the spotlight idea though as the emails show if I just use Spotlight on its own. Only within the mail app is there an issue.

Also if I find one of the emails in say the Gmail web app that isn't showing in search results in Mail, then manually locate the email in Mail app and view it, from that point on it *will* show in the mail search results.

So frustrating as I use Mail search all the time.

 

[Alhagar]

A subset of Catalina users are experiencing slow mail and Spotlight searches: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250746077?answerId=251808176022
I have tried all of the solutions listed there (and elsewhere) to no avail (including re-installing the OS). I have 2018 MBP 13. Family members running Catalina on 2015 MBP and 2017 MBA with NO issues. Advice?