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beker's avatar
beker
Brass Contributor
Sep 20, 2021
Solved

Outlook 2007 search on Windows 11 fails by returning no results

Since I upgraded to windows 11, Outlook no longer can search for text in messages. This was working on Windows 10 and Windows 8/7.   This issue is causing me a headache, I had this issue when upgr...
outlook for windows
  • beker's avatar
    beker
    Sep 24, 2021

    TomP_1475 

    Hi, I finally fixed the problem on Windows 11 by simply going to:

    Control Panel->Indexing Options->Modify->Unchecked "Microsoft Office Outlook"

     

    Save everything and restart the Outlook.

    Now I can search my mail box.

    I thought keeping outlook checked is the right thing to do.

    But Microsoft interface and docs, sometimes are not intuitive. 

     

    Hope this helps.

Orlando418's avatar
Orlando418
Copper Contributor
Mar 31, 2022

Paul_GBThanks fro responding so promptly to my message

Fantastic !! yes that worked.

I unchecked the boxes in indexing options in Control panel  and as you suggested also in Outlook's options . Restarted everything and the search feature now functions.  This was causing problems since the upgrade as I'm running a business where a lot of emails come in and don;t always get categorised.
THanks again to you and Beker.

Orlando418's avatar
Orlando418
Copper Contributor
Mar 31, 2022
to my dismay, it works repeatedly whilst I remain in the search window. However, once go move to calendar or to the inbox , then try searching again, I go back to the original problem where I have to reset the indexing process, log out of outlook, then log back in and then run the search. So it appears that the indexing resets to some sort of default every time i chnge from search to inbox or calendar. I will try the link provided by Diane and hopefully that resolves all this once and for all.
Thanks
  • Paul_GB's avatar
    Paul_GB
    Copper Contributor
    Apr 01, 2022

    Orlando418a bit confused. Are you saying the beker fix (and my addition to it) is failing? I don't use Outlook's email, but the fix remains when I switch from calendar to tasks, contacts, etc. Please let us know how Diane's link works out.

    • Orlando418's avatar
      Orlando418
      Copper Contributor
      Apr 03, 2022
      Good day
      apologies for the confusion.
      The suggestions by yourself and Beker both worked and continue to remain functional on my business computer which operates in the Windows10 environment, so that is all good. A million thanks.
      My work-from-home computer operates under Windows 11. On this one, the fixes worked and continued to work whilst I remained in the search window. Once I went back into the Inbox or Calendar or Tasks etc then returned to Search, the search feature stopped working. On rechecking the settings, I noticed that the box for Outlook in the Control Panel\Indexing window reverted back to being checked again. The one under Tools/Options in Outlook remained unchecked. So the box in Indexing seems to revert back to it’s ‘default’ setting.

      If I applied the fixes again, (yours and Bekers’) the search feature would work but the same cycle outlined above would repeat.
      I also applied Diane's fix update but that made a slight difference as I have outlined in my response to her.
      Headaches regarding this search saga Works in Windows 10 but not windows 11
      Thanks
      • HelpIfICan's avatar
        HelpIfICan
        Copper Contributor
        Oct 02, 2022
        My message to Becker:
        I could not get this to work, after removing both outlook and outlook 2007 outlook 2007 kept reassigning itself.

        My solution was: (While in Outlook 2007)

        From: Tools/instant search/search options/indexing
        Then uncheck “Index messages in these files":
        Im my case it was Personal Folders.

        Also click on “when searching” show results from all folders

        Hope this helps someone too.