Outlook Search Not Working – How To Fix It? [2010, 2013, 2017, 2019, 365]

Numerous emails are in your folder and you need to find a specific one, quite difficult the Outlook search feature, make every task easy, but sometimes due to reasons, Outlook is unable to search email.

The search feature uses indexing services to quickly locate what you are searching for. Here in this article, I will walk you through multiple solutions to fix Outlook search not working.

Setting adjustments for search result

By default, Outlook searches emails from “current folder“, which is normal, while searching somehow the required email is available in another folder like delete, which results in inaccuracy, the question raised that Outlook search not working.

Here few setting adjustments required to get accurate results.

  • Go to Microsoft Outlook.
  • Click the File tab from the left-hand corner of the screen >> Options
  • Now click on search from the left-hand navigation pane
Setting adjustment for search result

Now can modify some of the options:

  1. Can select All mailbox
  2. Click on the check box “Include messages from the Deleted Items folder in each data file when searching in All items”.
  3. You can change the color of selected highlighted emails.
  • Finally, Click Ok

Quick Repair

Quick repair is the process of reinstalling the setup with the default setting, once you run to repair the system checks out the discrepancies and fixes the unresponsive Outlook search function.

The process repair Outlook 2019, 2016, 2013, & 2010 in Windows 10

  • Close all your opened files.
  • Click on the start button from the bottom left corner of the screen.
  • Type Apps & Features into the Windows search box.
  • Select Apps & Features and click Open.
Apps & Features Window 10
  • Find and click on Microsoft Office in the list of installed apps and features.

Quick repair Office
  • Click Modify, and you get two options “Quick Repair” or “Online Repair“.
  • Select “Quick Repair” and hit Repair.
  • Once the repair process is completed, restart Outlook.

Rebuild Using Index Option

There are a few more options because Outlook 2010 and the higher version search function not working, the indexing option is one of them.

  • Open Outlook >> Click on File Tab in the upper left corner of the screen and then choose Options.
  • Click Search from the left navigation pane >> Click Indexing options.
Indexing options
  • Click on Advanced.
Indexing options dialog box
  • Click “Troubleshoot search and indexing” in the troubleshooting pane and see if the wizard finds and repairs any issue.
troubleshooting indexing

Some of the options appear which result are the main causes of Outlook search not working.

  • Select “all that applies” and click Next
search and indexing
  • Click Rebuild, it will take some time, depending on your data. Then, Restart Outlook and check if the issue is resolved.

In the majority of cases, after implementing the above process Outlook search function work normally whether it only brings up half of the results or stops working completely.

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