Indexing is the process of looking at files, email messages, and other content on your PC and cataloging their information, such as the words and metadata in them. When you search your PC after indexing, it looks at an index of terms to find results faster.

Symptoms of an incomplete index include the following: Partial or no search results are returned. Items that you expect to appear based on your search criteria aren't displayed. You can rebuild the search catalog, which restarts the indexing of your data files.

To learn more about search indexing, see the Search indexing in Windows FAQ. Learn how to connect Windows Search with your accounts in the cloud, manage your Windows Search and SafeSearch settings, clear search history, and more.

Indexing is the process of looking at files, email messages, and other content on your PC and cataloging their information, such as the words and metadata in them. When you search your PC after indexing, it looks at an index of terms to find results faster.

The search catalog is a file where all of your Outlook and Microsoft Windows items (data files) are indexed. What is indexing? What data is indexed in Outlook? Rebuild your search catalog. When Instant Search can't find an item in Outlook, try resetting the indexing feature.

When you search in Outlook Desktop on Windows 11, you might not see the most recent email messages in the search results. If you check Windows Indexing Options in Control Panel, you’ll notice that the indexing might be running slow or might be paused.

You want to search for a specific email message, but search in Outlook isn't working. All features on the Search tab (on the ribbon) are greyed out, and when you hover over any of these features, a tooltip appears to tell you that it's not available.

By default, the Windows Search service is set to Disabled in Windows Server 2016. This is because indexing of the volumes can cause problems in certain scenarios, such as with Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) and in running Remote Desktop Session Host (RDSH) with multiple simultaneous sessions.

STATUS: WORKAROUND. Although this is expected behavior, it's disrupting until the search index is rebuilt. To confirm that the index rebuilding status, do the following: In Outlook, select the Search box. On the ribbon, select Search Tools, and then choose Indexing Status.

After you install Windows 10 update KB5008212, or upgrade to Windows 11, recent emails may not appear in search results. This issue mostly affects users with POP, IMAP, and offline Exchange accounts due to search using the local Windows Search service to index email.