I used my 365 subscription for almost 2 years with relative few problems - great productivity tool! Then, I upgraded to 2016 and suddenly Outlook Search no longer functions. Spent about 30 hours going over every forum discussion and trying to apply half baked remedies... can't find anyone who knows how to solve this. Surely there's a solution out there? Is everyone on 2016 SOL? I've not found a post where anyone has indicated that Search works at all in 2016 Outlook. Hoping MS will provide a solution for this... Or, provide a means to uninstall... and re-install the previous version. Windows 7 64 bit Home Premium In Outlook select a folder to search (one that previously worked fine for search). Enter a name, such as "John" - returns no results.... even though every email in the folder has John multiple times in the email. Have tried perhaps as many as 100 links to articles that MS Support posted as response to previous people asking similar questions. MS Support - please don't post links that are not relevant. Please post answer here - none of the existing posts have a solution - I've checked them all already. Thank you for not wasting my time, your time, and the time of 1000s of others who may read this post... by posting links that won't help. Processes in Microsoft 365 for setting up Office apps, redeeming product keys, and activating licenses. Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question. Anonymous 2015-12-22T18:42:50+00:00 here is what I just found at groovypost and used and it does work for me: I definitely found a fix for this, (I have Win10 and Outlook 2016.) I opened Outlook 2016, clicked on Files, clicked on Options, clicked on Search, clicked on Indexing Options. I clicked on Advanced and unchecked Outlook, then I clicked on Modify, went to Files tab, unchecked pst file type. And WOW….it instantly started to work when I did a search in Outlook emails, contacts and calendar. Basically Indexing in Windows doesn’t work in Outlook 2016 with Win10. The response with my method is just as fast as it used to be with Indexing. REPLY 0 comments No comments here is what I just found at groovypost and used and it does work for me: I definitely found a fix for this, (I have Win10 and Outlook 2016.) I opened Outlook 2016, clicked on Files, clicked on Options, clicked on Search, clicked on Indexing Options. I clicked on Advanced and unchecked Outlook, then I clicked on Modify, went to Files tab, unchecked pst file type. And WOW….it instantly started to work when I did a search in Outlook emails, contacts and calendar. Basically Indexing in Windows doesn’t work in Outlook 2016 with Win10. The response with my method is just as fast as it used to be with Indexing. Anonymous 2015-12-19T05:45:02+00:00 On a number of systems that were upgraded from 365/2013 to 365/2016 there have been no such problems, the problem is not with Office but your system As a start run the system File checker, sfc Depending on the size of your outlook data files it could take up to 24hours to re-index 0 comments No comments On a number of systems that were upgraded from 365/2013 to 365/2016 there have been no such problems, the problem is not with Office but your system As a start run the system File checker, sfc Depending on the size of your outlook data files it could take up to 24hours to re-index Anonymous 2015-12-19T03:21:45+00:00 Our company is having the same problem too. This is really a shame on Microsoft.Instant search is an important feature to corporate and they got this wrong. Previously in Outlook 2013, they got the Calendar To-Do bar wrong. It could only see 1 day in advance for appointments. Every outlook upgrade is always fill with surprises with getting all the wrong things on the most common features. Now, we have to uninstall 2016 and reinstall 2013. 0 comments No comments

Our company is having the same problem too. This is really a shame on Microsoft.Instant search is an important feature to corporate and they got this wrong. Previously in Outlook 2013, they got the Calendar To-Do bar wrong. It could only see 1 day in advance for appointments. Every outlook upgrade is always fill with surprises with getting all the wrong things on the most common features. Now, we have to uninstall 2016 and reinstall 2013. Anonymous 2015-10-11T23:08:40+00:00 thank you for your reply. Unfortunately it did not resolve the situation. I was able to restore my entire system from a previous backup and get back to a working version of Office. Seemed the next step would be to stop the automatic upgrade to 2016. The Updates does not have a clear way to turn off major upgrades verses regular security and bug fix updates... So, I contacted MS Support who asked to log into my computer remotely. It took 2 hours... they uninstalled my 2013 version then, upgraded me back to 2016 then uninstalled that, then installed 2013 retail version.... I'll wait until the Search problem is fixed before going to 2016 again. Thank you 0 comments No comments thank you for your reply. Unfortunately it did not resolve the situation. I was able to restore my entire system from a previous backup and get back to a working version of Office. Seemed the next step would be to stop the automatic upgrade to 2016. The Updates does not have a clear way to turn off major upgrades verses regular security and bug fix updates... So, I contacted MS Support who asked to log into my computer remotely. It took 2 hours... they uninstalled my 2013 version then, upgraded me back to 2016 then uninstalled that, then installed 2013 retail version.... I'll wait until the Search problem is fixed before going to 2016 again. Anonymous 2015-10-11T03:08:48+00:00 Hi Stephen, Thank you for posting your question on Microsoft Community. We understand how you feel about this situation, let me assist you further. Kindly let us know the details about what are the troubleshooting steps you've tried so far? Let’s rebuild Windows indexing service and if it helps. You may refer to the below article Change advanced indexing options to rebuild the Windows indexing service. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Change-advanced-indexing-options For query related to rolling back to Office 2013 from Office 2016, you may refer to the below article **How do I reinstall Office 2013 after an Office 2016 upgrade?**And check if it helps. https://support.office.com/en-us/article/How-do-I-reinstall-Office-2013-after-an-Office-2016-upgrade-a6ca92f4-cbb4-4609-9fdb-f8d3dd6812f3?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US Hope it helps. Try the suggestions and let us know the result at your earliest convenience. Thank you. 0 comments No comments Thank you for posting your question on Microsoft Community. We understand how you feel about this situation, let me assist you further. Kindly let us know the details about what are the troubleshooting steps you've tried so far? Let’s rebuild Windows indexing service and if it helps. You may refer to the below article Change advanced indexing options to rebuild the Windows indexing service. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Change-advanced-indexing-options For query related to rolling back to Office 2013 from Office 2016, you may refer to the below article **How do I reinstall Office 2013 after an Office 2016 upgrade?**And check if it helps. https://support.office.com/en-us/article/How-do-I-reinstall-Office-2013-after-an-Office-2016-upgrade-a6ca92f4-cbb4-4609-9fdb-f8d3dd6812f3?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US Hope it helps. Try the suggestions and let us know the result at your earliest convenience.