I can’t search Calendars and Mail
A few weeks ago, search in Mail and Calendar stopped working, and now returns empty results every time. I’ve rebuilt Mail’s database and reindexed Spotlight, but that hasn’t fixed it. How can I fix this in macOS 10.13.6?
This isn’t uncommon in High Sierra and seems most likely when a large number of messages are stored in Mail. It can be due to a permissions problem in your user account’s Library folder. You should be able to fix that: choose Go > Home in Finder, then File > Get Info and, in the Sharing & Permissions section, ensure your username is listed as the owner, with read and write access. Click the gear icon and choose ‘Apply to enclosed items’. To finish, Apple recommends running two commands in Terminal (see bit.ly/mfrstprms). Once done, force Spotlight to rebuild its indexes by adding your startup disk to the Privacy tab in System Preferences’ Spotlight pane, leave the pane, then return and remove the startup disk from the list.
Beyond that, quit Mail, move the Mail folder from your account’s Library folder (pick Go > Library in Finder) to a place that’s searchable — your Home folder, say — and leave your Mac for a while to index it. Once complete, move the folder back to Library and restart.