Forum Discussion
Search in outlook 2016 shared mailbox is not working
Hi , since we are using Outlook 2016 , the search inside shared mailbox is not working.
Also users are not able to activate subfolder search on shared mailbox.
Is there any solution?
The Search experience will depend on how you have added the shared mailbox in Outlook. Read here for details: http://blogs.technet.com/b/outlooking/archive/2014/04/28/understanding-search-scopes-in-microsoft-outlook.aspx
That article only references Outlook 2010 and 2013. I dont see anything related to 2016 in there.
We are experiencing the same issues.
When we add a shared account under its own profile and a user logs into it with their user account, any searches only bring back results from their personal mailbox, not the shared mailbox they are logged into
When we add shared accounts with a users Mail Profile so they appear below the User's Mailbox, you dont get any results from the shared mailboxes when searching all mailboxes. The only way it works in this setup is to go to the actual mailbox and search from there.
We have several departments that use the shared account setup as its own mail profile option as when you respond to emails in that mailbox, the replies that people get are from that mailbox, not the individual user that is replying to them. If you reply to emails from a shared account mapped from within a users personal mail profile, all replies come from that user instead of from the shared account. Our departments need to be able to use the shared mailboxes setup as their own profile for that reason.
I see this has been an on-going issue for a good while (years) with Outlook 2016. Why hasnt something been done about it? Just telling users to change the way they do things completely is not a good answer. Would really like to know what is being done about this.
Majority of Outlook 2013 information applies to Outlook 2016. Additionally, if the search provider is "WDS", you need to make sure that your Windows OS is up-to-date via Windows Update with the "Give me updates for other Microsoft products when I update Windows" turned on (Settings > Update & Security > Advanced options).
For Outlook for Windows issues, you may check https://support.office.com/en-us/article/fixes-or-workarounds-for-recent-issues-in-outlook-for-windows-ecf61305-f84f-4e13-bb73-95a214ac1230?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US for fixes or workarounds.
Vasil, that link is not helpful. Shared mailbox searches in outlook should work intuitively out of the box, without any exposition or custom setups. This is a bug that needs to go into your queue as it is repeatable and consistent across all machines and configurations.
Almost 3 years later. Is it fixed yet?
- filipkohout I don't think so.
So half a year later, still an issue.....
Reindex your search index.
Click Search tools>Search options >Indexing options
Restart Outlook
Select search location from dropdown menu in searchbar
Tried it Vysakhan Kunneparambil-Sukumaran. That does not fix searching in shared mailboxes.
Searching for 'ASIN' from first e-mail in my shared Amazon account inboxNo results
Found a workaround Ernesto Iblon and BrianPitt. Turning off cached mode for shared folders has solved this issue.
Now my users can search shared mailboxes from Outlook 2016.
File tab -> Account Settings -> Double-click the account name -> More Settings -> Advanced tab -> Clear the check mark from download shared folders.
Still not working on our tenant.
We are in full cloud, no onprem.
Users with these Shared mailbox can't search on them in the Outlook client.
Only works on Outlook web.
Is there a date for the real resolution ?
(not usual weird tips from MS).
@bishopIT : perhaps you think it's useless to Make Microsoft realise they have to fix their products ? And don't forget to do it because chanel is dead. Shared Mailboxes ARE an exchange service
It does appear there is a search issue ongoing for Outlook 2016 MSI (perpetual) in Online Mode. I can repro this problem. The issue I can repro started with Exchange service version 15.20.2408.0 and higher. The issue is not reproing for me in 15.20.2387.9.
To check the Exchange version locate the Outlook icon in the System Tray, press Ctrl button and right click on the Outlook icon and click Connection Status.
If its an option and you want to workaround it put Outlook in Cached Mode, https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Turn-on-Cached-Exchange-Mode-7885AF08-9A60-4EC3-850A-E221C1ED0C1C.
Depending if you are searching Shared Mailboxes in Cached Mode and still seeing any issues you could set this reg key to tell Outlook to only use local Windows Search referenced in this article, https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Outlook-Global-Customer-Service/How-Outlook-2016-utilizes-Exchange-Server-2016-FAST-Search/ba-p/381195.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\software\Microsoft\office\16.0\outlook\search
DWORD DisableServerAssistedSearch - value 1
This issue has just cropped up for us.
Many of our users have a shared mailbox attached, and rely on searching it. This is a normal process for us.
One user reported that this function was working last Friday, but on Monday it was not working.
I check my shared mailbox and found that I'm in the same boat.
Have checked extensively online and haven't found a solution.
We have Exchange in the O365 cloud, no mailboxes on prem, although we do sync our local AD with O365. (Azure AD Connect).
Shared Mailboxes are connected using the admin.microsoft portal. In settings for a shared mailbox, we add a user as a "member" and give 'read and manage' and 'send as' permissions. The user's Outlook then adds the shared mailbox to their view automatically.
My O365 is on the Monthly Channel, currently Version 1909, Build 12026.20344 C2R.
I'm running win10 1903, Build 18362.418.
Gabe_BrattonMicrosoft
The service team is working on a fix for the search issue I described above. If I get an estimated fix timeline I'll post back. The problem was happening to mailboxes on service versions higher than 15.20.2387.9 (it was working fine on 15.20.2387.9). If you use the steps I posted above and you see the Shared Mailbox connection is on a higher build then its likely the same issue. Support was getting support volume on it and was being worked on with priority.
since two days we have the same problem. (15.20.2408.0)
Hello together,
I've found a solution that works for us.
With the installed O365 version 2103 (Build 13901.20462) 32bit and Outlook Version 16.0.13929.20296 from the Monthly Channel we've had the same issues like you have. The search in the shared mailboxes doesn't find something in the subfolders.
But as soon as I've installed the 64bit office version 2008 (Build 13127.21506) and Outlook version 16.0.13127.21452 from the semi annual channel the issue was fixed. Even in the online archive of the shared mailboxes we're able to search in the inbox and subfolders.
I've created a new config xml file for the Office Deployment Toolkit with using "https://config.office.com/deploymentsettings", activated the option for uninstalling previously installed office versions AND upgrading to the new architecture (from 32 to 64bit) and reinstalled office with running "setup.exe /configure configuration.xml" on cmd.
This was tested on 3 clients and an outlook instance on a terminal server.
Here's the config.xml:
<Configuration ID="d0f3cb44-4bdf-4bd0-9726-3034e2b16aea">
<Add OfficeClientEdition="64" Channel="SemiAnnual" Version="16.0.13127.21506" MigrateArch="TRUE">
<Product ID="O365ProPlusRetail">
<Language ID="de-de" />
<Language ID="en-us" />
<ExcludeApp ID="Groove" />
<ExcludeApp ID="Lync" />
<ExcludeApp ID="Publisher" />
<ExcludeApp ID="Teams" />
<ExcludeApp ID="Bing" />
</Product>
<Product ID="LanguagePack">
<Language ID="de-de" />
<Language ID="en-us" />
<ExcludeApp ID="Bing" />
</Product>
</Add>
<Property Name="SharedComputerLicensing" Value="0" />
<Property Name="SCLCacheOverride" Value="0" />
<Property Name="AUTOACTIVATE" Value="0" />
<Property Name="FORCEAPPSHUTDOWN" Value="TRUE" />
<Property Name="DeviceBasedLicensing" Value="0" />
<Updates Enabled="TRUE" />
<RemoveMSI />
<AppSettings>
<User Key="software\microsoft\office\16.0\excel\options" Name="defaultformat" Value="51" Type="REG_DWORD" App="excel16" Id="L_SaveExcelfilesas" />
<User Key="software\microsoft\office\16.0\powerpoint\options" Name="defaultformat" Value="27" Type="REG_DWORD" App="ppt16" Id="L_SavePowerPointfilesas" />
<User Key="software\microsoft\office\16.0\word\options" Name="defaultformat" Value="" Type="REG_SZ" App="word16" Id="L_SaveWordfilesas" />
</AppSettings>
<Display Level="Full" AcceptEULA="TRUE" />
</Configuration>Hope that helps you out a little bit.
Greetings from Germany,Michael
msteinmu sadly doesn't help - am an end-user with no access or sway of deployment in my company.
This needs to be acknowledged by Microsft and fix deployed top-down.
Same problem here.
We're a small company with around 4 users where a shared mailbox is very important for all our work. This includes searching this mailbox to quickly find the right mail(s).
It must be a client issue, because search is working perfectly on the webmail in the shared mailbox.
We have tried everything. Well over 50 threads and guides as been read and followed without any solution (including "Troubleshooting Outlook search issues" of course)
I probably forgot some actions here, but from the top of my head all these actions have been tried:
- Add the shared mailbox as separate account. Both as M365 type and Exchange type. This will result in an additional .ost file (2gb+) in the AppData folder.
- Different combinations of the account settings and HOW to add the additional mailbox ("open additional mailbox" in the advanced tab or not (gets added automatically in some cases)). Closing the mailbox manually by rightclick from within outlook in the case it was auto-added on start) and then adding it again. Marking "download shared folders" nor not.
- Debugging Windows Search and the indexing operations. Including rebuilding the index (and also changing special indexing options for specific files/types). When choosing the program "Outlook" as object to index about 50,000 things were indexed, but still wasn't searchable in Outlook.
- All the different cache options (from disabled to 1 months)
- Completely wiped the profile from Control Panel->Mail and created a new one, with a new account and going with all the default options. Nope.
- Increase the time that Outlook waits for Exchange to provide search results before falling back to use local search (ServerAssistedSearchTimeout)
- All the combination of where to search (click inbox or the whole post box in left pane, and the scope "all outlook objects", "current postbox", "current folder" etc)
In some scenarios, the shared mailbox is added with its name visible (e.g. Support). In others cases, the email address is shown instead (e.g. support@ourcompany.com). Not sure which should be "correct".In some scenarios, the search animation just keeps circling forever. Unsure if something is trying to search at all. In other scenarios, the search just returns "No results" or similar. Sometimes a clickable link below ("More om server" i think) doesn't work either.
On one of our computers, the current status is that search results are shown from SENT ITEMS only, regardless of on which mailbox is clicked, or scope chosen for the search.
This whole thing has now taken such time to debug and gather information about to try to solve it, that we are seriously considering switching to a completely different e-mail solution.
Now we have a completely new computer (W10) with latest Outlook Version 2108 (Build 14326.20404). Is there a detailed step-by-step guide to follow to get search working properly in a shared mailbox? Like, every single step and every single option to follow it 100% ? Nothing is done yet on computer except installed office.
Any help greatly appreciated, but I think only a software update can properly solve this.
msteinmu Our Office and Outlook versions are newer than yours yet search is not working for 50%+ of our users - Outlook for instance is 2102 (13801.20360).
Turning off cached mode fixes it in most cases but then we have applications and plug in which require cached mode to be turned on so this is not a viable nor reliable solution.
- I think 5 years of reported issue means they aren't going to repair that function.
tclark_mpg Yeah but it should be fixed
found a helpful note that suggested -
a) from Outlook search options, remove outlook as indexed location, exit Outlook
b) find the relevant .ost file in Explorer, set advanced to properties to allow indexing of contents
c) restart Outlook, add Outlook back to indexed locations in search options
AFAIK, this is a per user/per .ost file fix
seems to have solved it our site
