Who is this article for?

Users who want to troubleshoot indexing not seeing expected search results.

No elevated permissions are required.

This article provides troubleshooting tips for indexing issues and explains why some filed emails may not show in searches.

1. Settings

Searching for an email filed by a colleague in an unfamiliar location may take longer to appear than one in a familiar location.

If you've never used that location, you'll need to either file or search there to trigger it, provided your Tools User Preferences Search settings are set to "Only search locations I use":

2. Priority

Filed items are indexed based on a priority system. Locations used more frequently will be checked before those used less often. Using a location increases its search priority, but users must wait for the indexer to update.

3. Location status

Click the Status icon, then go to Search to see the indexer status and rate settings, which reset upon reloading Outlook. "Open Location Status" reveals debugging stats and the last scanned time for locations, indicating if the expected email has been scanned.

The overall percentage complete will fluctuate as the indexer runs in two parts:

1. It finds new emails, decreasing the percentage complete.
2. It indexes those emails, increasing the percentage complete.

4. Time to Index

The time to index all emails varies based on several factors, such as proximity to a file-based server and potential rate limits when connecting to remote systems like SharePoint. If multiple users index the same emails simultaneously, it can further delay the process. It may take days or even weeks, especially if indexing occurs during office hours.

To speed up indexing, one PC could index all shared locations first, allowing other users to build their base indexes from the results. More details can be found here: Indexing files to a new storage device