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Starry001
User level: Level 1 (116 points)

Apple Mail Search is Broken in macOS 27

Since the macOS 27 update, the search in Apple Mail is broken. I wanted to find an email that was sent to me, I did a search for the sender and I got a handful of results even though the sender communicated with me at least once a month for years... I used their specific email address and same thing.


I searched for a specific email address that belongs to Apple, and only one result showed up, when I have many dozens still in my mail. Just the word "Apple" and I got maybe 10 and they weren't even the same results.


What is going on? I never had this problem before.

Posted on Sep 25, 2026 4:00 PM

6 replies

Arombard
User level: Level 1 (39 points)

Oct 26, 2026 3:52 PM in response to Starry001

It is a bug in macOS 27 and probably connected to Apple AI. I had to downgrade back to macOS 26 because of that. I installed macOS 27 also on another Mac and it had the same problem. with IMAP it just doesn't work. If you have only iCloud emails, it works ok. But as you add some other email providers, it's really hot and miss. One time it can even find emails, just so the next time it won't find anything. At the same time searching with Spotlight finds the emails. And in case if someone wants to tell that macOS 27 indexing takes a long time for Apple AI, well, it's not that case. Both my machines had run 3 weeks and indexing was finished. It's a bug what Apple didn't fix for 27.0.1. Today came out 27.2, so if someone upgraded to that and had similar bug before, let us know, if the bug has been fixed.


PS! I have been reporting multiple time this bug since late July 2026 when I was running beta versions.

dexterurbane
User level: Level 1 (0 points)

Oct 29, 2026 1:31 PM in response to Starry001

I've filed a report using the feedback assistant app, and I'd urge others to do the same. My report says "Recent Similar Reports: None" which I find hard to believe, but the more people who report this to Apple, the more chance we have of getting it fixed.


I'd agree with another poster who lamented the tendency to mess up things that are not broken.

T-Slim23
User level: Level 1 (28 points)

Oct 22, 2026 11:50 AM in response to Starry001

I had the same issue on iPhone 15 Pro ios 27.0.1.


Easy Fix:

Make sure you have iCloud Mail back up turned on first. After that delete the Mail App completely. Then go to App Store and redownload the “Mail” App. Your mail will re-sync. After I did this my Email Search worked straight away :-)

Starry001 Author
User level: Level 1 (116 points)

Oct 22, 2026 3:27 PM in response to T-Slim23

I'm glad that worked on the iOS app, and it's worthwhile information to have, however it's the macOS app that I'm having an issue with. It's ongoing, I still can't really search for anything. If I enter something like the name of a contact, it might show up a handful of emails even though there's many dozens.

nebojsa68
User level: Level 1 (8 points)

Sep 30, 2026 4:13 PM in response to Starry001

Any updates to it? I have the same problem and not any solution found on the Internet worked so far.

primitive.cz
User level: Level 1 (14 points)

Oct 29, 2026 5:26 AM in response to Arombard

Not fixed in 27.2. There are still a large number of irrelevant emails in the search results.

Originally posted at discussions.apple.com/thread/256365083