Hi Community,

I have configured my Rackspace email account on Outlook 2013 with IMAP settings. The email search is very slow that it takes more than 60 seconds to search the emails each time. 

It is getting worst day by day and taking away my productivity.

I would really appreciate if anyone can help me with this.

Thanks,

Nirav

Hi,

Do you have a large .pst file or .ost file? This may cause the issue. Please go to FILE > Account Settings > Account Settings, click on the Data Files tab and open the file location to check the size of your Outlook data file.

Meanwhile, please reset your indexing to check the result. To do this, please refer to the following KB article and look at the Indexing does not finish section.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2769651

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Steve Fan
TechNet Community Support

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your reply. My OST file is of just 2.45 GB, which I guess is not so large considering increase amount of storage space available with email services. 

I have tried to reset the indexing couple of times before I posted this issue here. But, no luck after that as well.

Hi,

Been facing the same issue, I have 2 laptops, one with Office 2010 and the other Office 365. My email account is IMAP. Both machines have all emails downloaded locally. Search on Outlook 2010 is instantaneous and accurate while on Outlook 365 take a lot of time, sometimes doesn't even produce results.

I have tried rebuilding the index many times. OST file is almost 3 or 3.5GB.

Any advice?

  

I have been having a similar issue in the last couple of months. Outlook 2013 seemed to work fine searching my IMAP accounts when I first updated and I wondered what happened. I decided to check the indexing - didn't know that you could force an index with the tool - but the indexing status showed that everything is completed.

On a whim, I changed the search parameters from 'Current Mailbox' to 'Current Folder' and, bam!, search results were almost instantaneous again. May not be perfect, as it is searching at the folder level, but it helps.

UPDATE: I tried the suggestions that ShwetaG posted below but, in my case, it did not change Outlook's search results never progressing beyond 'Searching...' I did a little more experimenting and this is what I found. PS - I have my IMAP Gmail account setup in the 'advanced' tab with the root folder path as [Gmail] and this may explain some of the behavior that I noticed as outlined below.

If I select the email account name in the left 'folder pane', the search criteria changes to "Current Folder" and searches do not work. Changing the criteria to "Current Mailbox" and then entering the name or subject I want to search for produces very quick results.

If I select the IMAP account's Inbox folder, the search criteria changes to "Current Mailbox" and searches do not work. Changing that to "Current Folder" and entering the search name then produces quick results.

I am glad I found this discussion as it has encouraged me to find the solution to my irritating problem.

• Edited by Hank H Thursday, November 13, 2014 2:32 PM

I have been having a similar issue in the last couple of months. Outlook 2013 seemed to work fine searching my IMAP accounts when I first updated and I wondered what happened. I decided to check the indexing - didn't know that you could force an index with the tool - but the indexing status showed that everything is completed.

On a whim, I changed the search parameters from 'Current Mailbox' to 'Current Folder' and, bam!, search results were almost instantaneous again. May not be perfect, as it is searching at the folder level, but it helps.

UPDATE: I tried the suggestions that ShwetaG posted below but, in my case, it did not change Outlook's search results never progressing beyond 'Searching...' I did a little more experimenting and this is what I found. PS - I have my IMAP Gmail account setup in the 'advanced' tab with the root folder path as [Gmail] and this may explain some of the behavior that I noticed as outlined below.

If I select the email account name in the left 'folder pane', the search criteria changes to "Current Folder" and searches do not work. Changing the criteria to "Current Mailbox" and then entering the name or subject I want to search for produces very quick results.

If I select the IMAP account's Inbox folder, the search criteria changes to "Current Mailbox" and searches do not work. Changing that to "Current Folder" and entering the search name then produces quick results.

I am glad I found this discussion as it has encouraged me to find the solution to my irritating problem.

• Edited by Hank H Thursday, November 13, 2014 2:32 PM

Hi

As per the information and details provided by you, to speed up an email search in Outlook please follow these steps: -

Step 1: - First go to Send/Receive > Send/Receive groups, and then define Send/Receive.

Step 2: - On the right side of the send/receive groups window, click on the Edit button.

Step 3: - Uncheck the get folder unread count for subscribed folders option.

Step 4: - Under Received mail items, check the use the custom behavior defined below option.

Step 5: - In the next pop-up window, select Inbox and leave the other folders unchecked.

Step 6: -Click OK and then exit out of your options.

Step 7: - Do a send/receive to verify your Outlook is faster now.

I hope this information will be helpful for you.

Thanks and regards
Shweta@G 

• Edited by Goyal Shweta Thursday, November 13, 2014 7:51 AM

Hi

As per the information and details provided by you, to speed up an email search in Outlook please follow these steps: -

Step 1: - First go to Send/Receive > Send/Receive groups, and then define Send/Receive.

Step 2: - On the right side of the send/receive groups window, click on the Edit button.

Step 3: - Uncheck the get folder unread count for subscribed folders option.

Step 4: - Under Received mail items, check the use the custom behavior defined below option.

Step 5: - In the next pop-up window, select Inbox and leave the other folders unchecked.

Step 6: -Click OK and then exit out of your options.

Step 7: - Do a send/receive to verify your Outlook is faster now.

I hope this information will be helpful for you.

Thanks and regards
Shweta@G 

• Edited by Goyal Shweta Thursday, November 13, 2014 7:51 AM

I second what "Hank H" has written earlier on this thread: changing these settings will affect what Outlook 2013 checks/downloads on "Send/Receive" but will *not* speed up searches with the default scope of "Current Mailbox."

Only changing the search scope to "Current Folder" will make Outlook 2013 find what you're looking for.

This is specific to IMAP accounts: I previously used POP3 and didn't have that problem.

When can we get a fix?

I have been experiencing same problem as Hank H.  For the IMAP and not PST, search of "Current Mailbox" never completes and search of any "Current Folder" in that mailbox is fast, even though the aggregate size of the mailbox is not large.  To be clear, search of "Current Mailbox" is completely broken for IMAP for me.

I have found it convenient to change the search options to default to "Current Folder".