Search no longer works in Outlook.

Hello D L Sampson,

Good day! Thank you for posting this case in Microsoft Community!

Based on your description: Search no longer works in Outlook. I would like to cooperate with you working on this case. To clarify this case, please kindly provide us your Outlook version with product details by going to Outlook>File>Office Account and share that entire page screenshot with hide personal information. What version of Outlook do I have? For my suggestion, you may try following workaround to narrow down this case:

1. Firstly, you may try to restart your Outlook and Windows system to check again. If not working, you may try to select the Startbutton, select Settings > Update & Security, and then select Troubleshoot. Find and click Search and Indexing, and click Run the troubleshooter. This will help to check the issue.
2. If still no results, please verify the Indexing is complete. Here are the steps:

• Start Outlook and click in the Search box.
• Select Search Tools > Indexing Statusfrom theSearch menu.
• When the Indexing Statusdialog appears, you should see the following:

If Outlook has not finished indexing, note the items remaining to be indexed, wait 5 minutes, and then check again. If the number of items did not decrease, continue to the next step.

3. Then you may try to Fix search issues by rebuilding your Instant Search catalog and complete all the steps.
4. Next you may try to re-create another Outlook profile and test it again. Create an Outlook profile - Microsoft Support
5. You may also try to Repair an Office application - Microsoft Support via Control Panel.

See more information, you may check this article as reference Troubleshooting Outlook search issues and perform all the steps completely.

Hope the above workaround would be helpful. If you need further assistance, please feel free to let me know, I will keep assisting you.

Your understanding and patience will be appreciated.

Thank you!

Is there a proper fix for this? It started happing to me as well!

Same here (search functionality broken and verified on multiple Windows machines). I am running the latest Windows/Office updates (unfortunately/apparently as this used to work).

Tried recreating the OST files (from hotmail) and reindexing on one machine but it did not make a difference. I suspect an issue with a recent update to Outlook.

Nir

1. I have restarted windows. I have Updated the OS, I actually came back this morning to a fresh version of Windows 11 Pro. I was running Windows 10 Pro yesterday. However the same exact error exists in 11 Pro and 10 Pro. I ran the troubleshooter, and clicked all 5 options within the troubleshooter, Just be make sure I wasn’t missing something.

   2. Re-Indexing is complete. And has been completed 2-3 times over the past few days, and troubleshooting with different people.
   

3. I am a bit perplexed and confused about this step. I think this is different than the indexing I performed above, but maybe it’s the same?

4. I did create several different Outlook Profiles, to no change with the existing problem.
   

5. Repaired the program, then completely uninstalled the program and started with a new Fresh install of the program and none of this has worked.

So again to recap, the quickest work around that I have found currently is to have another email that isn't "outlook.com" server hosted. I have found Office 365 emails or AOL emails have worked in my case specifically.

You click on the email that allows you to search, then select "All Mailboxes", run the search. The information will not show up immediately, you have to then click on the "Find more from Server" HYPERLINK ... make sure the "ALL MAILBOXES" are checked ... then the Outlook program/mail exchange will search the unsearchable outlook.com email and provide results.

A bit redundant, but hey it works in a pinch! Better than logging onto the internet explorer, Edge, or Chrome to search online ... Which is the only other way that I found to search through the email that is having the problems, with what I am now led to be a OST problem.