# Outlook 2007 does not index new mails, therefore search results are incomplete



## Sowk

Hi all,

I use Microsoft Outlook 2007 on my Vista machine. Search had always been accurate until about a week ago when the power went out while I was on the pc.

When I boot up the system again, Outlook displayed messages of "Search results may be incomplete. XXXXX mails are being indexed." After a while, the number of mails that are being indexed just kept increasing as new mails came in. Therefore I initiated indexing manually from the control panel (Indexing Options > Advanced > Index settings > Re-build). I made sure to index correct folders.

Right now, Outlook has stopped indexing anything that came after 3rd August. I don't know why that is. I'm not the most technical person around so I don't know where to look for errors. I do realise that some file some where could have been corrupted.

I checked the indexing status and it says "Outlook has finished indexing all your items. New items are indexed when they arrive, 0 items remaining across all open mailboxes." which is obviously a lie  

Thanks in advance.


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## Krash

Rebuild the index. Let the indexing process run overnight so by the next day most of the files will be indexed. If it still does not complete the indexing , try to put away the receipt of new emails until indexing is finished.

To rebuild indexing : [http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932989]

1.	Click Start button, click Control Panel, and then click System and Maintenance.
2.	Click Indexing Options, and then click Advanced.
If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type your password or click Continue.
3.	Click Rebuild. When you are prompted to confirm that you want to rebuild the index, click OK.
Rebuilding the index may take some time to finish. During the rebuild operation, the indexer tries to reinsert all items into the index.


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## Sowk

Thanks Krash, that was what I did before, although I continued to receive new mails while I did it. It got done in about half a day (about 13,000 items were indexed).

I suppose I will stop receiving mails, try it one more time and see if it works.

Will post an update on how it goes.
Thanks!


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## Sowk

Hey guys, an update.

I rebuilt my index for the second time, left it to run and when I came in this morning, the process was "complete". However, nothing has changed. No items received after 3rd August has been indexed.

Any other suggestions? Is there a log file or index database that needs to be deleted to "clear the cache" so to speak, so that it can build from scratch properly?


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## Krash

There is, if I remember right. Hang in there , will post back in about 30 mins with the details.


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## Krash

Looks kinda tricky. The steps I found to rebuild the index were for Win Xp with WDS 3.0.

My suggestion would be shut off Indexing service. 
Create a new profile in Outlook 07. 
Import all your data into the new profile.
Rebuild the index and start it up.

See if you wanna try this. I will look up for some info on reproducing the steps to rebuild the index in Vista manually.


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## Sowk

Thanks Krash. WIll give your suggestion a try later.

In the meantime, what I have done is.. 
went into Outlook's Search Options, Unticked the data file, Restarted program and then ticked the data file again. It seems that it re-indexed everything and instant search works perfectly. However, today I did a search this morning and found that only items sent/received up till yesterday were indexed. New items are not being indexed again although index status says (0 items remaining).

It looks like I have to keep re-indexing Outlook every day just to keep indexing status updated. Will give your sugegstion a go and hope it works.


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## Sowk

This is a little late, but my index is finally up to speed!

Basically, I had to "jumpstart" the index:

(1) Outlook > Tools > Instant Search > Search Options > Untick data files
(2) Outlook > Tools > Instant Search > Search Options > Tick data files which you want indexed
(3) Let your cmputer sit idle for a while - I left it running at the end of the workday and it was all done by noon the next day, not a bad feat considering there are TONNES of mails in my inbox

This worked for me, and my index works fine now. No delays, new stuff gets instantly indexed just like they should!

Hope this helps someone. The above instructions are for Outlook 2007 on Vista.


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## TechGuy

Sowk said:


> This is a little late, but my index is finally up to speed!
> 
> Basically, I had to "jumpstart" the index:
> 
> (1) Outlook > Tools > Instant Search > Search Options > Untick data files
> (2) Outlook > Tools > Instant Search > Search Options > Tick data files which you want indexed
> (3) Let your cmputer sit idle for a while - I left it running at the end of the workday and it was all done by noon the next day, not a bad feat considering there are TONNES of mails in my inbox
> 
> This worked for me, and my index works fine now. No delays, new stuff gets instantly indexed just like they should!
> 
> Hope this helps someone. The above instructions are for Outlook 2007 on Vista.


Just wanted to report back that I had the same problem, and this seems to have solved it. Thanks!!


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## degrees

How do you know when the process is actually completed?


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## msdowdie

This seems to have worked for me, too. Thanks for the tip.

I think you can tell that the indexing is complete when you search for something and Outlook no longer pops up the yellow bar warning that the index is incomplete. It would be nice to see actual stats, but I haven't found a place to do this.


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## westats

Doesn't seem to have worked for me.

Outlook "found" about 42,000 items to index (yes - huge pst file) and is now showing 0 items remaining in status.

Yet, when I search on any common term/ string I know is there, it will come up with zero results, even when I expand to all mail items.


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## yatesmonger

I worked on this problem for several days. The steps posted above with instructions to "jumpstart" the index did help, but I finally figured out that I needed to first repair my outlook data file (outlook.pst) using scanpst.exe. This is a program that should have been included with your outlook installation. Once I did this, I re-indexed and everything works perfect now.


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