What to do when Outlook Search is not working properly?

Outlook is an e-mail program generally used by multiple companies and individuals. It helps in organizing messages and appointments in an Outlook calendar. The search function of Outlook is very helpful or considered as mandatory for people who receive and answer through e-mails daily. Users do not need to search through all folders, instead of that you can view a filtered section of relevant messages by entering a proper search term.But what if in the case of Outlook search not working properly or it may stop suddenly. Check all the problems if outlook search not working and how these problems can be eliminated?

Outlook Search Not Working: What are the major problems?

All the Outlook search issues are not equal. There may be multiple reasons if your Outlook search function is not working properly. But through these problems, user cannot see search results. It may also cause other user to check only half the available e-mails in their search. But some of the main problems by which Outlook search not working properly are listed below:

User may not receive any search results.
The search is automatically cancelled.
Certain mails are displayed for some short duration.
Some search results might be missing.

General methods to recover if Outlook Search not working on Mac:

If any kind of problem is encountered while using Outlook program, then it must be solved at the earliest. There are multiple solutions available to solve the problem because of which outlook data file cannot be accessed. Check all the different options that can be used when Outlook search not working from below:

1^st Method: Restart Outlook

Restating the Outlook is one of the simplest solutions that you can use if any problem is encountered. To restart the program, close it onceand then reopen it. Outlook is generally set up by default so clicking on close button need not mean that you have exit the program. Outlook always runs in the background even if it not appearing on screen.

2nd Method: Use repair function

If you restart the Outlook and the problem still exists, then you can try to repair the program virtually. For this, Go to the Window control panel and click on “Programs”. Now, you can easily uninstall or modify the program. Generally the whole Microsoft Office package is to be repaired, as Outlook is a part of that package.

Click on “Change” button followed by “Repair” button. When the whole repair process is complete, restart the window after closingit once. If the reason of the problem still exists in the repair tool’s access area, then the Outlook search function will return to normal.

3rd Method: Disable third-party search tools

Few add-ons are developed by some third parties that can be easily integrated into the Outlook program. These may results in Outlook search not working. These add-ons can also access the program’s database, by which users can search for messages through them. In order to overcome this problem, you must disable anythird-party tools that can be installed later. If the outlook search not working because of add-on, it will now work properly.

How to Fix Problems occurred at the time of Outlook 2010 Search?

There may be some problems in the search function of Outlook 2010. Several problems are encountered even in latest versions of Outlook. There may be several problems that may cause outlook search not working 2010. But there are some simple solutions that can easily fix these problems. Given below are the detailed steps that you can do in case of Outlook search not working 2010:

1st Method: Re-start the Outlook

It is one of the most common and general method used to recover the problem caused in Outlook 2010 search function:

First of all, completely close the Outlook.
Go to the Control Panel > Programs > Programs and Features > Turn Windows Features On or Off.
Put a check mark on the Indexing Service and then click OK.
Re-open the Outlook and check if the search function is working now.

2nd Method: Rebuild the Index in Outlook 2010

If Outlook 2010 search is not working properly, than rebuilding the index can also be considered as one of the solution. For rebuilding the index, follow the steps given below:

For accessing the indexing options, there is no need to exit out of Outlook 2010 as the option is available within the program.
To access Indexing options directly from Outlook, go through File > Options > Search
Select Indexing Options from the Search section.
Select advanced options from the Dialog Box appearing on screen. For this you may need administration rights.
Click the Rebuild button for rebuilding your index.

It may need some time to rebuild the Index. Once the whole process of Outlook rebuilding is done, then all the problems related to outlook search not working 2010 should be over.

How to Fix Problems related to Outlook search function not working in Mac?

As the exact cause of this error is still not known, but some reasons due to which outlook data file cannot be accessedsuchas corrupt or incomplete spotlight indexing, parent folders being in privacy tab, Outlook profile folder stored at a wrong place and many more. But some of the main methods that will help in fixing outlook search not working Mac are listed below:

1stMethod. Make sure that Outlook Profile/Identity is stored at the default location

First of all, make sure that the Outlook Identity data is stored under the correct default location and does not contain any special characters in its name. If the Profile or Identity name has any special character, then change the name by following steps given below:

Default Profile Location of Outlook 2016 for Mac:
- ~/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/Outlook/Outlook 15 Profiles/Main Profile
Default identity location of Outlook for Mac 2011:
- /Users/username/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2011 Identities/Main Identity

2nd Method: Run the Outlook Search Troubleshooter

The next method to fix outlook search not working Mac, is to run the Microsoft Outlook Search Troubleshooter.

Close Outlook for MAC.
Run the Outlook Search Repair Troubleshooter tool.