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Tips and Tricks to Resolve “Outlook 2016 Search Problem Search not Working”

  author
Published By Ashwani Tiwari
Anuraag Singh
Approved By Anuraag Singh
Published On October 27th, 2020
Reading Time 5 Minutes Reading

Have you ever been in a situation where all of a sudden your Outlook 2016 search option stop working and you receive a message “Outlook 2016 search problem something went wrong”?

Then no need to worry! Because in this guide, we will provide the solution to troubleshoot this “Outlook 2016 problem search not working” issue in Windows OS.

You may experience these following issues while searching any emails and attachments in Outlook 2016.

  1. Outlook fails to return any search results.
  2. Outlook 2016 search not showing all results.
  3. Search tab not working, turns grey in Outlook 2016.
  4. Outlook search does not find any matches.
  5. Outlook 2016 search not showing recent emails.

Manual Workarounds to Fix Microsoft Outlook 2016 Search Not Working Problem

Here we have mentioned the manual solutions based on the different causes for the Outlook 2016 search problem.

1: Check Visibility of Search Bar

First of all, you should check the visibility of the search bar. If your Outlook search bar is not found, then follow these steps to turn it visible:

  1. Go to File > Options > Customize.
  2. Choose all Tabs under the ‘Choose commands from’ section.
  3. From the list of tab selections, select ‘Search’, click ‘Add’, and then click ‘OK’.

2: Determine the Outlook Indexing Status

Outlook will not show recent emails in search results if the Outlook indexing tool does not work properly. Follow the steps carefully to check the indexing status in Outlook 2016:

  1. Launch Outlook 2016.
  2. Click on ‘Search’ bar.
  3. Select the ‘Search Tools’ drop-down and choose ‘Indexing Status…’

On completion, it will display the number of mailboxes awaiting index. Now, you can use the search function but may not find the desired mails due to incomplete indexing status. In that situation, you need to rebuild the Microsoft Outlook index. Let’s have a quick glance to do the same.

3: Trick to Rebuild the Outlook Index

Well, there are two different methods to reconstruct the Outlook index and resolve the Outlook 2016 problem search not working issue.

I. Repair MS Office Installation

Repairing MS Office or Outlook 2016 installation may fix the Greyed Out Search bar in Outlook 2016 issue. Follow the steps to repair MS Office installation:

  1. Go to Control Panel > Programs>Programs and Features.
  2. Click on Outlook 2016 or Microsoft Office.
  3. Click ‘Change’ button at the top.
  4. Select ‘Repair’ and click ‘Continue’.

II. Outlook Index Repair Option

In Outlook 2016, there is an ‘Indexing options…’ features to fix Outlook index related issues. Follow the below-mentioned steps to rebuild the Outlook Index:

  1. Open Outlook 2016, go to File>Options>Search.
  2. Click on the ‘Indexing Options…’ button.
  3. Select ‘Microsoft Outlook’ >> click the ‘Advanced’ button.
  4. Click ‘Rebuild’ and then click ‘OK’.

4: Increase Email Sync Slider

If your Outlook search results are incomplete or missing older email items then fix this issue by increasing email sync slider.

  1. Open Outlook 2016 on your Window.
  2. Go to File > Account Settings > Account Settings.
  3. Choose your email account and then click ‘Change’.
  4. Drag the slider to ‘All’ and then click ‘Next’.
  5. Click ‘OK’ when a prompt appears.
  6. Click on the Finish tab to close the window and then restart Outlook.

After relaunching Microsoft Outlook, it will index all the mail items. Once done, you can search for the desired mail.

5: Change the setting to Display All Results

The default search result displayed by Outlook when you enter a search query is 250. To show all results, follow these steps:

  1. Open Outlook and go to File > Options > Search.
  2. Select the ‘Improve search speed by limiting the number of results shown’ checkbox.
  3. Click ‘OK’ and restart the Outlook.

6: Disable Faulty Add-ins

As we know that add-ins helps to add features and improve productivity. However, sometimes an incompatible or outdated Outlook add-in may result in Outlook search problems.

Follow these steps to disable Outlook add-ins and fix the Outlook 2016 search problem:

  1. Open Outlook 2016.
  2. Go to File > Options > Add-ins.
  3. From the Manage list, select COM Add-ins and click ‘Go’.
  4. Uncheck the add-ins and click ‘OK’.
  5. Restart Outlook 2016.

7: Inspect the Status of Windows Search Service

  1. Press Windows+R, type services.msc, and click ‘OK’.
  2. Scroll down and find ‘Windows Search’.
  3. Verify the ‘Status’ is ‘Running’ otherwise right-click on ‘Windows Search’ and select ‘Start’.
  4. Then double click on ‘Windows Search’.
  5. Choose ‘Automatic (Delayed Start)’ option in ‘Startup Type’ drop-down menu.
  6. Hit ‘OK’ and close all windows.

Restart your system and Outlook to check if the Outlook search problem is resolved.

8: Use Windows Registry

  1. Press Windows+R, type Regedit, and click ‘OK’ to open the Registry Editor.
  2. Now, copy & paste the following registry key location in the address bar and hit ‘Enter’.
    Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Search
  3. Right-click on ‘Windows Search’ and select New > Dword (32-bit) Value.
  4. Name the Dword as ‘PreventIndexingOutlook’.
  5. Double-click on PreventIndexingOutlook. Enter 0 in Value data: field and click ‘OK’.
  6. Reboot system.

9: Fix Personal Folder Outlook Data File (.PST)

If the cause of the Outlook search problem is a corrupt Outlook data file then you should use a scanpst.exe tool to repair file. MS Outlook provides an Inbox Repair Tool or SCANPST.EXE to analyze and fix minor level corruption.

Limitations of Inbox Repair Tool : This utility only supports the PST file of size up to 2GB and it doesn’t support an encrypted PST file.

Alternative of Scanpst.exe Tool

To overcome the downside of the Inbox Repair Tool, you have use the advanced PST recovery. The software allows users to repair large sized corrupted data file without any file size limitation. Additionally, it will also allow repairing encrypted or severely corrupt PST data files.

It not only helps resolve Outlook 2016 search problems but also assists in repairing inaccessible PST files on various Outlook versions like 2003, 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019.

Concluding Words

This blog resolves one of the issues such as the “Outlook 2016 search problem something went wrong” that you may face while searching for any emails in Outlook. There are many reasons due which users face these search-related issues. One of the major causes of this problem is incomplete Outlook indexing or corrupt PST file. Based on these causes, we have mentioned various resolution to fix this Outlook 2016 search problems.

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