Search not working on Outlook 16.79 on Mac Sonoma

This is a follow-up to my own post of January 15, 2024, regarding how to restore search function to email in legacy Outlook for Mac running the most recent Sonoma OS.

The rebuilding process I described above appeared to be working . . . but then the very next day email search was back to its non-functional status.

I tried again -- with same partial success-then-no-success results.

In response to this later post from January 19:
>>I switched to the new outlook, and there the search works fine, I find specific mails back. So far I don't understand the "refuse" to new look and feel of outlook.>>

The deal-breaker for the new Outlook option, for me, was that it lost all the subject folders I had maintained for projects for more than 20 years. Admittedly, that's a lot of emails -- but what working professional doesn't have tons of emails over the course of a career? And how many of us have trusted Microsoft's Exchange servers to preserve them?

It's as though Microsoft thinks it's OK to come into my office and dump all the contents of my file cabinets in the floor and tell me, No problem, you can just use the Search function in New Outlook to find any email in this mess.

I invested a great deal of effort in organizing those file cabinets, and I want to keep them -- as well as the capability to continue searching and filing new messages.

A company with the enormous intellectual capacity of Microsoft should be able to solve this, not simply leave its loyal clients with a mess. Time to step up NOW, Microsoft.

To all those who have suffered this problem AND the lack of clear response from Microsoft Support about it --

I came upon some instructions from a few years ago when I first faced this issue. This method IS working, and it's worth remembering how to trick Spotlight into re-indexing a database (in this case, the Outlook 15 Profiles folder).

1. From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences
2. Click Spotlight
3. Go to the Privacy tab
4. Click the plus sign (+) to add a folder to the list of non-indexed folders
5. Select yourHome folder(usually has your name or username and a house icon) and clickChoose(Here, search your computer for the Outlook 15 Profiles folder, which is located deep within a Library folder)
6. If prompted for confirmation, click OK
7. After a moment, select the item you just added to the list and click theminus sign (-) to remove it
8. Close Spotlight preferences
9. Rebuilding will take some time so make sure you leave your computer on for a while. You can use the computer while the search index builds.

In my experience this time, after a restart of my Mac and a relaunch of Outlook, the re-indexed items began reappearing little by little in a new search!

After numerous attempts over recent years to retain my carefully curated folder structure for an enormous database of emails, I do NOT recommend the method of selecting New Outlook and then immediately reverting to Legacy Outlook. Too much risk of corrupting the OLM database.

Barbara B.

I don't know which version of Outlook you're referring to (the heading says Outlook 365 for Mac Version 16.79). I am running 16.80, and there is no "Outlook > Preferences > Search > Indexing > Rebuild" selection pathway. There's not even a "Preferences" menu option— it's called "Settings."

You can observe status of indexing with Command - Space

Just type: index in Spotlight Search box

"Outlook > Preferences > Search" is not available in the New Outlook which is where the problem we are discussing is occurring. None of the other things work either, at least in my case.