The Outlook search box provides a useful way to quickly find some of the data in your email, by combing through a massive database of messages almost instantly, but you may find that Outlook search sometimes stops working, leaving you with no way to find what you need. According to business insider, while there are a variety of reasons why Outlook may stop searching, the root causes are generally well understood, and here are several ways to troubleshoot Outlook when search isn’t working.
Close and restart Outlook
Whenever you notice that Outlook is behaving strangely or unexpectedly, the first thing you should do to try to fix the problem is to close and restart the program.
This gets rid of any temporary data that could be causing the problem, and you can’t simply close the Outlook window the usual way, because Outlook leaves the services running in the background, so to make sure it’s actually closed, you need to use the task manager. 1. Click on Start and type “Task manager”. 2. Click “Task Manager” in the search results when you see it appear. 3. Click on Microsoft Outlook and then click on End Task. 4. Start Outlook again. If that doesn’t solve your search problem, try the next troubleshooting option.
Restart the computer
Another simple troubleshooting step that can solve this problem is restarting your computer. Click Start, then the Power icon, choose Restart, and after you turn your computer off and on again, open Outlook and see if the search feature is restored.
Run the search troubleshooter
Search problems are common enough that Microsoft created a Windows troubleshooter, and this troubleshooter can often solve Outlook search problems because Outlook takes advantage of the search services built into Windows. 1. Click on Start and then click on Settings. 2. In the “Search for a setting” search box, type “problem” and click Troubleshoot other problems when you see it appear in the search results. 3. In the Others section, click Play to the right of Search and Indexing. 4. In the Search and Indexing window, click on all the problems you are having, including Outlook search not showing results. 5. Click Next and let the troubleshooter run.
Make sure Outlook is indexed for search
Outlook has its own search settings that you can check as well, and one of the most common issues is that the search engine stops indexing Outlook for search, this is easy to fix. 1. In Outlook, click on File and then choose Options. 2. In the navigation pane on the left, tap Search. 3. In the “Sources” section, click on “Indexing Options”. 4. In the Indexing Options dialog box, you should see Microsoft Outlook in the list of sites being indexed. 5. If you don’t see Outlook listed, tap Edit, check the box for Microsoft Outlook, and tap OK.
Delete and recreate the Outlook search index
Also, even if everything is configured correctly, Outlook search will fail if the search index is corrupted, and to solve this potential problem, you can rebuild the index. 1. In Outlook, click on File and then choose Options. 2. In the navigation pane on the left, tap Search. 3. In the “Sources” section, click on “Indexing Options”. 4. In the Indexing Options dialog, click Advanced. 5. On the Index Settings tab, in the Troubleshooting section, click Rebuild. Rebuilding the index will take some time, and when it’s finished, restart your computer and test Outlook’s search again.
Make sure Outlook is up to date
Although it’s relatively unlikely, it’s possible that a bug or incompatibility in the current version of Outlook is preventing Search from working properly. You can eliminate this potential glitch by making sure you are running the latest version of Outlook with all available updates and bug fixes. 1. In Outlook, click on File and then choose an Office account. 2. On the right side of the window, click on Update Options. 3. In the drop-down menu, tap Update Now. 4. Outlook will check for and install updates.
Date: 07-07-2022