search functionality in Mac Mail

[Kristin]

Historically, the search functionality in Mac Mail has been notoriously bad. Even if I search for a direct phrase which I know is in a message, 95% of the time Mail can't find it.

 

That said, is the search functionality in Mail any better in Sequoia? If so, does it matter if you have that AI function turned on or not?

 

Thanks,

Kristin

 

[EricC]

This is not an answer to your question, but …

 

I use InfoClick, by Nisus, the makers of the word processor Nisus Writer Pro. InfoClick is really, really good at finding things in e-mails. I have no idea why Apple Mail can't do what it does.

 

BTW, I don't even use Apple Mail, except on my mobile device. On my Mac, I use Thunderbird and just run Mail once in a while so the database is up to date.

 

(My Mac currently is running Mac OS 14.x Sonoma, so I can't say about Sequoia.)

Edited December 30, 2024 by EricC
typo

[Kristin]

Hi @EricC,

Just out of curiosity, why don't you use MacMail?

[EricC]

16 hours ago, Kristin said:

Hi @EricC,

Just out of curiosity, why don't you use MacMail?

It is probably just inertia + familiarity. I don't remember the original reasons, but when I switched to Mac from Windows back around 2008 or so, for some reason I could not get Mail to do what I wanted. So … don't take my preference for Thunderbird too seriously. If you're happy with Mail.app, go for it. Thunderbird has frustrated me a few times, too, but right now it and I are on good terms.

[Kristin]

Hi @EricC,

Ok, that makes sense, and I agree if Thunderbird is basically working for you that there isn't reason to switch. Really the only issue I have had with MacMail is that if I search for a specific email, it is sort of a pain. Apart from that though, I really appreciate the way it can handle my accounts. It's not quite as powerful as Outlook Express, but for sure better than going to the server. I actually don't remember what MacMail was like in 2008, but I do know that it wasn't as capable as it is now. 

 

On a side note, I am actually surprised that it is a few days later already and nobody who uses MacMail has responded. Am I really the only person using it?

[Larry Anderson]

You are not the only one.  I use it for a few email accounts on MacOS Sequoia 15.2.  I hesitated responding because my usage of mail is pretty simple and straight forward.  That said, I have had no issues with search in the new version.  It seems to do a good job separating out search results that include matches within the email addresses,  subject, attachment, or body of the email. Is there a particular type of search you have trouble with I could perhaps check in my version?

 

[Kristin]

2 minutes ago, Larry Anderson said:

Is there a particular type of search you have trouble with I could perhaps check in my version?

 

Hi @Larry Anderson,

Thank you for your response, and I think my use of Mail is pretty simple also. I have a lot of accounts attached to it (12...), but I just use it to check and respond to mail. I don't do macros or anything complicated.

The fundamental issue is that sometimes I am looking for a specific email from someone, but I can't remember which email it was (or even which account sometimes). In such a case I would go to search and type in a specific word or a specific phrase that I know was said. When I do, Mail tends to bring up a collection of random email chains, but doesn't point me to the email in question.

 

After trying to find it for 15 minutes I get frustrated and give up and go to the Gmail server. Then I type the same word into the Gmail server and it not only finds the email in seconds, but it highlights the word which I searched for. Then I note the subject title and date, go back to Mac Mail and scroll down to that date and look for the thread with that subject title, and then I find it. This is obviously convoluted and pretty unacceptable, and so I was wondering if Apple had FINALLY fixed their archaic search function.

So I guess if you don't mind checking something, I guess I have two questions. If you know a specific phrase from an email chain months ago...

1) If you go to the All Inboxes and search for that phrase, does Mac Mail find the email in question?

2) Does it highlight the word you searched for?

Thanks,
Kristin

[Larry Anderson]

Well that was an interesting experiment 🙂.  In general the search results list was accurate and the word and/or phrase being searched for appeared and was highlighted.  I did get different results depending upon the term used and whether I added quotes to search for an exact phrase.  

 

I did not see the search results highlighted within the individual emails after selecting them in the search results.  If I double clicked on the email and opened it in a separate window the results would appear highlighted after pressing command-F, it seemed to remember the search term and populate it for me.  

 

If the email found was due to an attachment containing the term it was a little trickier to find since I had to open attachments and search to find the terms.  

 

Overall searching seemed useful and I found what I was looking for but I did have to do some secondary searching as noted to find the terms within long emails or attachments.  

 

Hope this helps. 

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

I was using it until recently. I don't think search was that good.

 

I had to move my weather work emails to my weather work machine. I moved my Accordance work emails to my Accordance work machine running Thunderbird so that now all my work emails are on work-issued machines.

 

For my personal emails, I'm forwarding everything to Proton Mail now and just using their apps since it's encrypted, and now I can just deal with everything in one app.

[Kristin]

Hi @Dr. Nathan Parker,

Thanks for letting me know, and it has always been surprising to me how bad Mac's search functionality is with Mail. It seems very unlike Apple to be so bad at it. Regarding Proton, I do use Proton with someone who refuses to use Gmail, but other than that I don't like it. It is encrypted, but only from one Proton account to another.

[Steven S]

6 hours ago, Kristin said:

Regarding Proton, I do use Proton with someone who refuses to use Gmail, but other than that I don't like it. It is encrypted, but only from one Proton account to another.

 

Hi @Kristin. Two things to note here: 1) Proton and most mail providers support PGP (Proton natively; Gmail and others with an extension) so that emails between Proton and other mail providers can be end-to-end encrypted (but only if the non-Proton parties are disciplined enough to use it ). 2) The other encryption advantage that I believe Dr. Parker is referring to is that all one's Proton data is also encrypted at rest so that, theoretically, even if Proton's servers were hacked (or compromised by a rogue administrator, or the target of a government warrant, etc.) one's data would not be compromised.

[Kristin]

4 hours ago, Steven S said:

 

Hi @Kristin. Two things to note here: 1) Proton and most mail providers support PGP (Proton natively; Gmail and others with an extension) so that emails between Proton and other mail providers can be end-to-end encrypted (but only if the non-Proton parties are disciplined enough to use it ).

 

Hi @Steven S, First of all, Happy New Year. 🎉 I hope you had a good night.  Anyway, regarding this, I agree that privacy is decent on the server. But I am pretty sure that in Proton's literature they explicitly state that the emails are only encrypted when the email is going to another Proton account. So for example, Proton to Gmail is not encrypted. I think you can pay Proton to cause it to be encrypted even when emailing someone else, but to do that you would need to actually pay for it which would sacrifice anonymity. Also, on a side note, it is also a pain since the only way it would connect to Mac Mail (this thread, after all), is if you pay for it. And there is no way I would pay for Pop, that's ridiculous. 

 

4 hours ago, Steven S said:

2) The other encryption advantage that I believe Dr. Parker is referring to is that all one's Proton data is also encrypted at rest so that, theoretically, even if Proton's servers were hacked (or compromised by a rogue administrator, or the target of a government warrant, etc.) one's data would not be compromised.

 

That was my impression too, but to be frank, I don't think this is true. I was debating saying this in my first response or not, but since we are talking about it, I saw a video once where a guy gave a very convincing argument that Proton is actually a 🍯. After watching the video, I agreed 100%.

 

 

[Steven S]

Happy New Year!

 

1 hour ago, Kristin said:

But I am pretty sure that in Proton's literature they explicitly state that the emails are only encrypted when the email is going to another Proton account.

 

Yes, "by default."  As I said earlier, Proton supports PGP natively and allows you to automatically include your public key with every outgoing message. Anyone with a PGP-enabled mail client (e.g., Gmail with the appropriate extension) can then send the Proton user encrypted mail. Assuming the non-Proton user also makes their public key available, the Proton user can likewise reciprocate.

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

I have a paid account since I work for a Proton reseller. 

 

It's true by default, it's Proton to Proton for end-to-end encryption, but it's also true what @Steven S said about PGP with other accounts for end-to-end encryption. 

 

I've used Bridge in the past, but now I use their Mac app. 

 

I'm not too worried about my outgoing emails, but I like the fact that my emails sitting on the server itself are encrypted, plus using the Proton app itself has been decently straightforward. 

 

Apple Mail has always has its share of issues with people. 

[Kristin]

20 minutes ago, Dr. Nathan Parker said:

I have a paid account since I work for a Proton reseller.

 

What is a Proton reseller? Tbh, I thought a lot of the point of Proton was the advantage of being anonymous, which doesn't really jive with a paid account. Also, how am I the only person concerned that it's a 🍯? I'm surprise that doesn't bother anyone.

[Steven S]

32 minutes ago, Kristin said:

Tbh, I thought a lot of the point of Proton was the advantage of being anonymous

 

This article explains the difference between privacy and anonymity, and how ProtonMail only offers the former. The latter requires additional tools, such as Tor or a no-log VPN. And if using a paid Proton plan, paying with crypto is probably a good idea if you truly want to remain anonymous. 

 

40 minutes ago, Kristin said:

Also, how am I the only person concerned that it's a 🍯? I'm surprise that doesn't bother anyone.

 

Have you seen Proton's response to such allegations? While that post is a couple years old, it still might alleviate some of your concerns.

 

[Kristin]

Hi @Steven S,

Thanks for the links.  I went to re-find that video I watched forever ago, and I see now that the video had been from 3 years ago, where that payment wasn't an option, and the issue in the other article you mentioned had also been a problem. So they have apparently improved their privacy since then, which is good. I still find them kind of creepy though, tbh.

 

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

The Proton reseller I work for re-sells Proton service bundled with other cybersecurity tools, so a person pays one vendor and gets a bundle of cybersecurity tools. No different than getting a bundle of cubersecurity tools from a major provider, but my reseller picks and choose from different tools so they can offer some of the best of the best.

 

Proton is about privacy, which is different from anonymity as @Steven S said.

 

While I don't put anything in any cloud service that I wouldn't be comfortable with the entire world knowing in the event of a data breach, I'm far more confident in Proton's services than other major "big tech" services when it comes to protecting my privacy. At least I know they care, at least I know there's a layer of encryption, and at least they have released reports on what they're doing. I can't say that about all providers.

[Lorinda H. M. Hoover]

I can't weigh in on Proton as I don't use it, but I can tell you my solution for dealing with Mac Mail's less than stellar basic search.  I have a smart mailbox I named Search.  When typing in a term in the basic search box doesn't work, I control-click on the "search" smart mailbox, choose "Edit Smart Mailbox" and set the search terms I need. 

[Kristin]

Thank you, @Lorinda H. M. Hoover! That is a really creative idea. I have never tried the smart mailboxes in Mail, but I will for sure look into it given what you said. Thank you for the idea.  

[Lorinda H. M. Hoover]

You are welcome!  I have a small collection of smart mailboxes I set up years ago.  I don't use most of the others much, but the search one is one I use pretty regularly.  The other one I still make use of is one that is an "enhanced" "Unread" mailbox: it filters out emails from email groups I'm a part of as well as emails to email aliases we used for my kids when they were young. [The actual emails came to me, but were easily separated out as being for them]. 

[Dr. Nathan Parker]

I used Smart Mailboxes (and Smart Folders, etc) years ago (back during Mac OS X Tiger). I forgot how useful they could be!