Verify that the Outlook Profile/Identity is stored at the default location. First of all, make sure that the Outlook 2016 for Mac Profile or the Outlook for Mac 2011 Identity data is stored under the correct default location and has no special characters on its name. If the Profile or Identity name contains a special character, then follow the steps in this to change the name:.
Aug 5, 2015 - Office 365. In the previous version for Outlook for mac, in order to create a new identity, or profile, you would open up the Database Utility to create the new identity. This has changed for Office for Mac 2016, identities are now.
Outlook 2016 for Mac default Profile Location:. /Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/Outlook/Outlook 15 Profiles/Main Profile. Outlook for Mac 2011 default Identity location:. /Users/username/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office 2011 Identities/Main Identity Method 2. Install all Microsoft Updates. Open any Office application such as Word, Excel, or Outlook. On the top menu, go to Help Check for Updates.
Important: If you don't see the 'Check for Updates' option on the Help menu, then download and run the latest version of the Microsoft Auto-Update tool from. (After running the tool, the ' Check for Updates' option will be available). Run the Outlook 2016 Search Troubleshooter. The next method to fix the 'No Results' search issue in Outlook 2016 for MAC, is to run the Microsoft Outlook Search Troubleshooter.
Close Outlook 2016 for MAC. Run the tool from MS. Move Messages to another Outlook folder. Open Outlook.
Create a new folder inside Outlook (e.g. Inbox-New) 3. Select and move all messages to the new created folder.
When the moving is done, move back your messages to the original folder. (This process will force Outlook to re-index the emails and they start to appear in the results). Once you done delete the temporary folder. Re-Index Hard Drive in Spotlight.
Open the System Preferences and click on Spotlight. Make sure that Mail Messages is checked under the Search Results tab 3.
Then click the Privacy tab. Make Sure that the Outlook Profile (or Identity) folder or one of its parent folders is not added to the Privacy tab. (If so, then remove them, skip the rest steps and try to find something using the Outlook search). Then Drag and drop the hard drive icon from the desktop into Spotlight. (This will remove the current index) 6. Finally highlight the hard drive you just added and click the minus button to remove it.
(This will force Spotlight to create a new index) 7. Wait until Spotlight indexing your drive.
After indexing restart your computer. Try to use the Outlook search. If the problem persists: a. Delete (or move to desktop and delete them later) the following files from the User’s Library/Preferences folder:. com.microsoft.Outlook.SyncServicesPreferences.plist.
com.microsoft.SyncservicesAgent.plist b. Then delete (or move to desktop) from the User's Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2011 folder, the file OfficeSync Prefs c. Restart your MAC. Try to perform a search in Outlook. Re-index the Outlook for MAC Search Database. Outlook for Mac uses OS X Spotlight to search your mailbox.
If the Spotlight Index is corrupted then the Outlook search may display 'No results'. At this case you have to re-indexing the Outlook 2016 for Mac search database. To do that:. Outlook 2016 for MAC: – To re-index the Search database in Outlook for Mac 2016 1. Go to Finder Applications Utilities Terminal. Type ' mdimport -L'. IMPORTANT: If you see more than one instance of 'Microsoft Outlook Spotlight Importer.mdimporter' delete the Outlook application that you are NOT using, empty it from the Trash, again restart your Mac, and go back to Step 1.
Without closing the 'terminal' window, open Outlook and try the search function. If you receive results when searching then the problem is resolved. If the Outlook search displays again 'No results' then continue below: 5. In Terminal, re-index your Outlook database using the following command and substituting your own user name for. Mdimport -g '/Applications/Microsoft Outlook.app/Contents/Library/Spotlight/Microsoft Outlook Spotlight Importer.mdimporter' -d1 /Users/ /Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/Outlook/Outlook 15 Profiles/Main Profile. Note in the command above, the path after '-g' is the default path where your Outlook is installed.
The path after '-d1' is the default path to your profile. You'll have to substitute your actual paths if you have renamed your profile or installed Outlook in a different location. Re-indexing will take some time to complete. Once the process is complete, quit and re-launch Outlook.
TIP: Here is an alternative method to re-build the Outlook 2016 Database in MAC: 1. Go to the following location:. /Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/Outlook/Outlook 15 Profiles/Main Profile/Data 2. Move the Outlook.sqllite file to your desktop. (This will force Outlook to detect an issue and to do an auto rebuild). When the Rebuild is completed, open Outlook and perform a search.
If the search is working then delete the 'Outlook.sqllite' file from your desktop. Outlook for Mac 2011: – To re-index the Search database in Outlook for Mac 2011 1. Hold down the Option key, and then click the Outlook for Mac 2011 icon. (or go to Applications Microsoft Office 2011 Office Microsoft Database Utility). Highlight your Identity Click Rebuild.
FIX Spotlight Permissions & Rebuild Spotlight Index using Terminal. The final method to resolve the 'No Results' issue when performing a search in Outlook 2011 or 2016 for Mac, is to fix the Spotlight permissions in Outlook 2011 database and then to rebuild the Spotlight database, by following the steps below:. Outlook for Mac 2016 1. Open Terminal from Applications Utilities. Give the following commands in order (Press Enter after typing each command). sudo mdutil -i off /.
sudo rm -rf /.Spotlight. sudo rm -rf /.metadataneverindex 3. Reboot your computer. After restart, open Terminal again and type these commands in order:. sudo mdutil -i on /. sudo mdutil -E 3. Now wait until Spotlight reindex your entire drive.
You can monitor the process if you click at Spotlight Search icon at the upper-right corner. When the indexing is completed (100%) then proceed and try the Outlook search. Outlook for Mac 2011. Open Terminal from Applications Utilities. Give the following commands in order (Press Enter after typing each command). sudo chown root:wheel '/Applications/Microsoft Office 2011'.
sudo chmod 755 '/Applications/Microsoft Office 2011'. sudo mdutil -a -i off. sudo rm -rf /.Spotlight-V100. sudo mdutil -a -i on 3. Now wait until Spotlight reindex your entire drive.
You can monitor the process if you click at Spotlight Search icon at the upper-right corner. When the indexing is completed (100%) then proceed and try the Outlook search. Completely Remove and Reinstall Office for MAC. Backup Outlook Data (copy Outlook Identity or Profile to another location.
Your Desktop). Completely or 3. Re-install Office for MAC. Open Outlook for MAC and use the Import command to import the Outlook data from the backup location.
Follow the steps is above to reindex the Outlook search database. Try the Outlook search function.
Did it work for you? Please leave a comment in the comment section below or even better: like and share this blog post in the social networks to help spread the word about this solution. Thanks Lakonst2013. I finally managed to fix the issue. I did Method 6 and it did not work by itself.
Here is the issue: After spending almost a week trying everything, I came across another thread describing almost the same issue I was having, so rather than just focus on Outlook, I began to look at the issue stemming from Spotlight. All the traditional ways of rebuilding Spotlights index was not working and the issue had to do with rebuilding the Launch Services Database. Here is the fix using Terminal: Copy this exactly (don't change anything) sudo /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -seed -lint -r -f -v -dump -domain local -domain system -domain user -domain network Paste it in the Terminal window and hit return (it may ask you for your admin password enter it and hit return. (There may be a minute of inactivity, but be patient) you'll see code as it does it's thing and will eventually stop. Now you will be doing 2 more steps (I just closed the window after the first step and opened a new one).
Step 2 – Open Terminal window and enter: killall Dock hit return (this one will go fast) close window Step 3 Open Terminal window and enter: sudo mdutil -E / hit return and I believe this one will again ask you for your admin password, enter hit hit return and your done. Now your Spotlight Index should be OK. At this point do 'Method 6. Re-index the Outlook for MAC Search Database.'
As mentioned above. This is what finally got Outlook 2016 for Mac back in working order.
Resolve the Spotlight indexing issue FIRST, then fix the Outlook issue. I tried all the 'traditional' ways of re-indexing Spotlight but ONLY the Terminal commands above, finally allowed Outlook to re-index it's database correctly.
Lakonst2013 Mar 18, 2019 @ 13:40:21.
Has anyone come up with a manual way to do a database rebuild for Office 2016 for Mac? One of the most common things I do for my Office 2011 users is rebuild their identity. While Outlook 2016 has been pretty nice so far, I ran into an issue with a user today that would have qualified for a DB rebuild. But Outlook 2016 has removed this feature, claiming it does all this 'automatically' and there should never be a need for rebuilding manually. Well I ended up deleting the profile and re-adding it, which did solve the problem.
Any way for me to manually rebuild the identity? Or rename the equivalent of the Mac '.ost' file to force a re-sync/rebuild? This is an old post, but we just ran in to this issue.
We had a user whose profile was corrupted and had archived mail locally on their computer. Creating a new profile would not solve his issue.
And for whatever reason Outlook would not detect there was an issue and offer to rebuild the profile. I ended up going to /Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/Outlook/Outlook 15 Profiles/Main Profile/Data and deleting the Outlook.sqllite file.
This forced Outlook to detect an issue and do an auto rebuild. Not exactly an elegant solution, but all of his archived mail was brought over with the rebuild. If anyone goes this route, make sure you backup the Main Profile folder, just in case. This is an old post, but we just ran in to this issue. We had a user whose profile was corrupted and had archived mail locally on their computer.
Creating a new profile would not solve his issue. And for whatever reason Outlook would not detect there was an issue and offer to rebuild the profile. I ended up going to /Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/Outlook/Outlook 15 Profiles/Main Profile/Data and deleting the Outlook.sqllite file. This forced Outlook to detect an issue and do an auto rebuild. Not exactly an elegant solution, but all of his archived mail was brought over with the rebuild. If anyone goes this route, make sure you backup the Main Profile folder, just in case. Michaelhof wrote: This is an old post, but we just ran in to this issue.
We had a user whose profile was corrupted and had archived mail locally on their computer. Creating a new profile would not solve his issue. And for whatever reason Outlook would not detect there was an issue and offer to rebuild the profile. I ended up going to /Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/Outlook/Outlook 15 Profiles/Main Profile/Data and deleting the Outlook.sqllite file.
This forced Outlook to detect an issue and do an auto rebuild. Not exactly an elegant solution, but all of his archived mail was brought over with the rebuild. If anyone goes this route, make sure you backup the Main Profile folder, just in case. This worked for me! After restoring from Time Machine, all the folders I had archived locally in 'On My Computer' vanished. The emails within the missing folders could still be found using the search function within Outlook, but it was irritating not being able to navigate to specific folders.
After following these instructions, the missing folders reappeared as sub-folders in the Inbox folder within On My Computer. You rock, michaelhof! Minor correction - the file I deleted is named 'Outlook.sqlite' not 'Outlook.sqllite'.