#Outlook instant search not working windows

Note: Windows Search can’t be uninstalled and reinstalled in Windows 10. Repeat the above steps to enable it again.Press OK and wait until the installer is finished.

Control Panel-> Programs-> Turn Windows features on or off.

If your installation of Windows Search got damaged, you can remove and reinstall it in the following way.

Troubleshooting wizard for Search and Indexing. This will start a troubleshooting wizard in which you can select the option “E-mail doesn’t appear in search results”. If it still doesn't work press the blue “Troubleshoot search and indexing” link in the main Indexing Options dialog (so not in the Advanced dialog shown above). I would recommend to have it rebuild itself overnight.Īdvanced Indexing Options allows you to Rebuild the Search Index. This will rebuild the entire Index from scratch and depending on the amount of documents to be indexed, this could take quite long and degrade your system's performance while the Indexer is still busy. (Type “Indexing” in the Search field of Control Panel to quickly locate the applet.) Start-> Settings-> Search-> in the left pane select Searching Windows-> at the bottom click the text link Advanced Search Indexer Settings You can rebuild tine index via the Advanced Search Indexer Settings dialog If Outlook still can’t complete indexing, it might be that the Index itself has been damaged. Leave the computer idle again and see if it will eventually reach the status of “0 items remaining.” Rebuild the index You might get a lot of disk activity this is the Search Indexer removing the indexed items from the Index.Īfter this, open Outlook again and go back to the Search Options and select Outlook or the pst-file we just deselected. Close Outlook and wait for about 5 minutes and also verify in Task Manager (CTRL+SHIFT+ESC) that on the Processes tab the outlook.exe process actually quits. To force Outlook to re-index its data, go back to the Search Options and, depending on the version of Outlook that you are using, deselect Outlook or the data file that is giving you issues. Disable and then re-enable Outlook or pst-file for indexing When you have a big pst-file or mailbox, this indexing could take some time but if the number of items left to index doesn't change after leaving your computer idle for over 30 minutes, something is wrong still. Here click the Search Tools button and select the Indexing Status… Here click on the ellipsis menu (3 dots) on the right and choose Search Tools-> Indexing Status…Ĭlick in the Search field in order to make the Search Tools tab visible in the Ribbon. To see if everything has been indexed now use:Ĭlick in the Search field in order to make the Search Tools tab visible in the Ribbon. Once repaired, open Outlook and leave it idle for some time. You can find this file in the same folder as outlook.exe or use OutlookTools (free!) to locate it for you. In order to fix these you should scan your pst-file for errors with scanpst.exe. If your pst-file has been marked but Outlook doesn't display the correct results, it usually means there is some corruption going on in your pst-file. Outlook selected as an Indexed Location in Indexing Options. Locations selected to be indexed in Outlook 2010. Unlike in Outlook 2010, you cannot specify which mailboxes or pst-files in Outlook to index You either index Outlook or you don’t. Here, make sure that Outlook is selected.

Outlook 2013 / 2016 / 2019 / Microsoft 365įile-> Options-> section Search-> button Indexing Options…-> button Modify.

If it is not listed, you’ll have to recreate your mail profile. In the list that is shown under Microsoft Outlook, make sure that your pst-file or mailbox is displayed and selected. If the issue isn’t caused by any currently known issue, check whether the pst-file or mailbox has been marked to be indexed.įile-> Options-> section Search-> button Indexing Options…-> button Modify-> expand Microsoft Outlook You can check for any currently known issues regarding Search and other Outlook features on this page: Fixes or workarounds for recent issues in Outlook for PC. Some of these bugs are relatively minor but on other occasions, it could prevent Outlook from showing any search results for certain configurations. Unfortunately, there are regularly issues with the Search Index either on the Windows side or the Outlook side. You can troubleshoot Instant Search in the mentioned order in this article. There are a couple of levels at which Instant Search in Outlook can break. How can I get it to completely index my messages? I let it index overnight but nothing has changed. Instant Search doesn't display any results at all, only displays results before a certain date or always shows that there are items left to index.

Outlook instant search not working