Windows 7 Rebuild Search Index

I experienced a problem today where I could not search for e-mails older than 1 day in Outlook. As I have over 10,000 email messages the search function is crucial to quickly find emails. The solution seemed to be a Windows 7 Rebuild Search Index.

 

 

To rebuild the index go to Control Panel / Indexing Options…..

Windows 7 - Control Panel

Windows 7 - Control Panel

You will be presented with a list of Included Index Locations, one of which is Microsoft Outlook.

Windows 7 - Indexing Options

Windows 7 - Indexing Options

Clicking the Advanced Options button gives you the following screen…..

Windows 7 - Advanced Options

Windows 7 - Advanced Options

On this screen you can select to Rebuild the Index, you will get a warning telling you that this may take some time (and indeed it does!).

If you go into Outlook during this process and try to do a search as shown below…..

Windows 7 - Outlook 2010

Windows 7 - Outlook 2010

You will get a message that items are still being indexed, if you click on this message you will see a status report…..

Windows 7 - Index Status

Windows 7 - Index Status

Once all items have been re-indexed your searches should then be successful again.

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Post Navigation