Search in outlook 2016 shared mailbox is not working

Copper Contributor

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?

132 Replies

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-ou...

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-windo... 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.

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 inboxSearching for 'ASIN' from first e-mail in my shared Amazon account inboxNo resultsNo 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.

 

 

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/581f1e61-a479-48e9-813a-5478cca8de99/searching-a-s...

Best workaround right now is to map shared mailboxes as new account with separate .ost file, not as additional mailbox inside another .ost.

 

 

can confirm this effect
i this Bug worked on?

Was this ever resolved as we have users trying to use shared mailboxs but unable to use search. Switching off cached mode is not really appropriate. This worked in outlook until recently it seems to be cascading from user to user. 

Hi David,

 

Have you tried to map shared mailbox as new mail account? It is working for me.

 

02a1.jpg

I have mapped shared mailboxes to their own .ost files and we continue to have searching issues within the shared mailboxes only.  We are able to search our primary mailboxes without issue, but shared folders & mailboxes struggle.

 

I agree with the above post that this should be an intuitive feature that works out-of-the-box.  Shouldn't matter how you set your mailboxes up, searching should work seamlessly.

 

Is anything being done on this?  Any "permanent" fix yet?  I use the word "permanent" loosely as we all know MS tends to break stuff they previously fix with subsequent fixes...

Hi i have the same problem with a second mailbox in office 2016. 

What is the workaround?

Yep, same problem here with a couple of clients

 

Outlook is C2R 1901 with E3 licensing.

Primary mailbox has 3 additional mailboxes added to their accounts without automapping, added as additional mailboxes into separate OSTs.

When searching "All Mailboxes" it locks up outlook for a few minutes

According to the client it used to work just fine on previous builds, but downgrading them isn't an option as they couldn't tell us when.

 

The common factors with our clients are 

- Shared mailboxes
- RDS Servers

 

Hopefully Microsoft can do something, or we can get a hint to what may solve this problem.

The fix for the shared mailbox search issue with multiple Exchange accounts in the profile is actively being worked on.  The Search team is expecting to get the fix out by late March and hopefully sooner.  It is being addressed with a service change.  If I get more specifics on the fix date I will post back an update.


@Gabe Bratton wrote:

... It is being addressed with a service change.  ...

 

How will we receive notification of this?


 

Hi Folks,
Are we any further forward with regards to a fix for this? Even a more up to date suggestion regarding timescale?

@Gabe Bratton 

@Smith1977 

Sorry for the delay.  I checked with the engineers on it yesterday and they are still actively working on it.  Its a complex issue to fix.  They are still expecting to have it working by end of March.  If I get any better status I'll post back.  

@Gabe Bratton 

 

Hi,

So... i'm in the same situation right now. Some users must find quickly some emails in the shared mailbox but... doesn't work.

I opened, just before finding this topic, a ticket through the 365 Admin Center.

The tech is trying everything that he can try :). 

I talked and shown to him this topic. It's funny because he is not able to confirm like you the real status about that.

 

So... the issue is real.. but is it real also that we could have for the end of this month a fix ?

Seriously i'm really hoping about the fix..