Search can’t find old messages on new phone

[STC1709]

i can confirm it worked. now can search keywords for old messages. im on 17.1 after doing the toggling and restarting and all that. i kept it charged and locked. after 30 min did a test search and it worked

 

[Cotypubby]

Yup, 17.1 fixed it. Searching key words in messages now brings up all results.

 

[DDustiNN]

came here from another thread. trying steps someone mentioned to me in another thread. i will report back to see if it works

The only thing you should need to do is charge your phone and lock it.

 

[Morac]

So 17.1 fixes being able to search for text in messages. Having photos populate in search is still hit or miss, but that issue predates iOS 17. Right now though I'd say only about 15% of the photos show up in search compared to what I see on my iPad.

 

[pdxa4]

Anymore updates on this fix for the released 17.1 software ?

 

[Morac]

It seems to be working. It can take a while for photos to show up. Most do, but I’ve found not all show up.

My iPad is missing a photo someone sent me the other day even though it shows up on my Mac and ironically my iPhone 15 (since that was the device that was broken).

 

[highdefjunkie]

I can definitely can confirm 17.1 fixed my issue. Thank God.

 

[SuperTimmy]

I believe I figured out the issue. Go to Settings: General: Apple ID/iCloud: iCloud: then under the apps using iCloud section click Show All, under messages make sure to turn on the Sync this iPhone, give it a few minutes and should be good.

I transferred my data from my old phone to an iPhone 15 Pro Max yesterday. As far as I can tell my messages transferred over, but I can’t search for anything prior to about February 2022. There are messages going back many years prior to that which I can find via search on my iPad and Mac. Same thing with photos and videos and the like.

The message app doesn’t say it’s indexing so I think it’s finished.

Is there a way to get Messages to re-index the messages so search works?

 

[Annabelle25]

I believe I fixed the issue on my 15 pro max 17.0.3 by rebuilding search index.
Here is what I did.

Setting - Siri and search - mesaages - turn off show app in search and show content in search (under while searching)

Restart iPhone and turn on those settings.
iMessage will start rebuilding index and should be able to see old messages once index is finished. Good luck!

Just to add I didn’t have iCloud message enabled, only local message.

It worked! Thanks! I didn’t lock it but had it charging and checked it after about 10 minutes.

 

[Jason B]

My issue was similar, but all the message photos and attachments inside my conversations was all there, then I did a restart and all were gone! I was going nuts, but this fixed it on my 15 pro 17.4 by forcing a rebuilding of the search index. Here is what I did.

Setting - Siri and search - messages - turn off show app in search and show content in search (under while searching)

Restart iPhone and turn on those settings.
iMessage will start rebuilding index and should be able to see old messages once index is finished. I also don't think I had iCloud message enabled, only local message.