Problem with search in Mail

[PeterB]

Hi everyone,

If I try to use Mail's search "entire message" function, I'm getting different results if I search "All Mailboxes" versus if I search a specific mailbox. (If I search All Mailboxes, I get lots of results; if I search a specific mailbox, I get no results at all.) So far, here's what I've tried to fix this, none of which has worked:

- Repairing permissions
- Getting Spotlight to rebuild the search index by selecting, then deselecting, the hard drive under Spotlight in System Preferences
- Rebuilding the mailbox in question
- Using Onyx to rebuild Mail's Envelope Index

Anything else to try? Or is this a bug in Mail? (I'm using OS 10.5.8 on a MBP.)

TiA

[clay]

searching in mail has been spotty at best for me (10.5.8 for me, too). Certain parameters won't return any results when I'm positive they should. And other parameters work pretty well.

I should boot into 10.6 to see if they fixed it, but it's an issue for me as long as I can remember.

[PeterB]

clay, yeah, it's pretty aggravating -- especially when I want to find one particular email, and I know it's there somewhere...

[C(-)ris]

Eh, search/spotlight is erratic. Take what you can get, it isn't worth the time to try and figure it out.

[steveroberts]

Same problem here on Tiger Mail. Unable to find a workable solution.

SR