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Why is global search not finding all emails?

  • 3 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 36 views
  • Last reply by sfhowes

Zatukp
Zatukp
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I just searched for an email that's in one of my accounts' "Sent mail" folder.

I searched by both recipient and by subject.

In neither case did the email turn up in search results.

Opening the folder by hand, I can see it's there.

I really need to be able to search my emails and know the search function will show me emails matching my search criteria. In this case, I knew the email I was searching for existed because I had just seen it, but if I hadn't just been looking at it I never would have known "Global Search" wasn't showing me everything. How do I make sure it shows me ALL emails matching my search criteria?

I just searched for an email that's in one of my accounts' "Sent mail" folder. I searched by both recipient and by subject. In neither case did the email turn up in search results. Opening the folder by hand, I can see it's there. I really need to be able to search my emails and know the search function will show me emails matching my search criteria. In this case, I knew the email I was searching for existed because I had just seen it, but if I hadn't just been looking at it I never would have known "Global Search" wasn't showing me everything. How do I make sure it shows me ALL emails matching my search criteria?

Modified by Zatukp

All Replies (3)

sfhowes
sfhowes
  • Top 10 Contributor
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Try it again after rebuilding the database:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/rebuilding-global-database

To search a specific account or folder, Classic Search (Ctrl+Shift+F) is often faster and more reliable.

Zatukp
Zatukp Question owner
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How often do I need to manually rebuild the database? As I said, usually I'm not going to know something is missing from search results, I just happened to have just seen it this time.

Thanks for the other tip but "Searching a specific account or folder" isn't useful functionality to me. If I knew what account or folder an email was in, I wouldn't have to use the search function.

Modified by Zatukp

sfhowes
sfhowes
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

I don't think it's known how often the database becomes corrupted or the exact causes. The automatic regeneration, based on mail usage, probably works best if the most active folders, like Inbox and Sent, are kept as small as possible, regularly compacted, and not scanned by external apps such as antivirus. A weekly routine of rebuilding the database shouldn't be difficult to apply. Also, only use Global Search when Classic Search or the Quick Filter Bar are not sufficient.