Microsoft is investigating an issue causing Outlook search not to display recent emails in desktop apps running on Windows 11 systems.
The problem affects POP, IMAP, and offline Exchange accounts because Outlook's search feature uses the local Windows Search service to index emails.
Microsoft 365 and connected Exchange accounts are not impacted because they use Service Search, which is not affected by this issue.
"When searching in Outlook Desktop on Windows 11 you might not see the most recent emails in the search results," Microsoft explains.
"If you check Windows Indexing Options in the Control Panel, the indexing might be running slow or might be paused."
The company is currently working on addressing this known issue and shared a temporary fix for affected customers until a solution is available.
Microsoft advises Windows 11 users to mitigate the Outlook search bug by disabling Windows Desktop Search and switching to Outlook's built-in search engine as a workaround.
To disable the Windows Desktop Search Service for Outlook, you must add a new PreventIndexingOutlook registry key using the steps outlined here.
Not Microsoft's first Outlook rodeo
This is the second time Microsoft warned Outlook users of email search issues on systems running Windows 11.
As BleepingComputer reported in December, Outlook users also reported experiencing search issues last year in Outlook for Microsoft 365, Outlook 2019, and Outlook 2016 after upgrading to Windows 11.
As those affected said, Outlook no longer showed results when searching for specific emails on IMAP/POP accounts, in some cases causing the app to freeze completely.
Those problems started showing up in June 2021, right after the first Windows 11 preview builds surfaced, impacting emails and other items stored locally by POP and IMAP accounts in PST or OST files.
As mitigation, Microsoft also recommended users at the time to switch to Outlook's built-in search engine, which would remove the cause of the issue: Windows Desktop Search being broken after the search index got deleted during Windows 11 upgrades.
In January, Redmond also addressed Outlook search issues triggered after installing Windows 10 security updates released in November 2021 and later.
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Comments
zamroni - 1 year ago
Let's not become Microsoft's unpaid "Beta" tester.
If you're not using alder flame, stay with Windows 10 21h1.
You can postpone windows feature update for a year in gpedit.
Additionally, set office update channel to semi annual enterprise using 365 admin or admx add in of gpedit.
One drive client update can also postponed using similar method.
h_b_s - 1 year ago
@zamroni
Apparently you've not been keeping up with the news or something. First of all, Microsoft disbanded their testing teams years ago. They're depending almost entirely on automated testing and telemetry feedback of all their products. That means everyone no matter which version of Windows, Office, Server, AD, etc you're using, you're a 'beta tester'. Including yourself. There's not a damned thing you can do about it. At all. None of their releases are ever fully tested before being pushed out to production, and many of them are being coded up by people without proper domain experience (like their continuously incompetent security 'fixes').
Secondly, gpedit is not available on any Home version of Windows so unless the person is using Pro (and Enterprise versions aren't controlled by the user anyway) your advice is pretty useless.
joshwenke - 1 year ago
You can enable group policy editor on any version of Windows with a couple commands. I think the advice was rock solid and it's how I have all my managed devices configured.
BH0 - 1 year ago
That is not problem of users, that Microsoft gave up on testing and its rolling out unfinished work. Users are not interested in solving problems every patch tuesday. We are living in 21st century and computers with Windows are more unpredictable/unreliable than ever. Thats what we get when Microsoft is putting lipstick on a pig (Windows NT core with "brand new" user interface, thats all we get in bundle called Windows 10/11).
And we can do A LOT. At home, no Windows for me. Only Fedora (GNU/Linux) and iOS for my cell phone. Problem solved. You dont have to be a slave of Microsoft, if you think so, think again.
ChrisEsystems - 1 year ago
Outlook search feature does not work after upgrading to Windows 11:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-6959151502611378176-J3G_?utm_source=linkedin_share&utm_medium=member_desktop_web
serghei - 1 year ago
Since December https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-shares-fix-for-broken-outlook-search-in-windows-11/