Windows Server 2022 - Outlook 365 - IMAP - Search body not working

Luca Colombo [X-LAB] 0 Reputation points
2024-06-03T07:17:32.8133333+00:00

This behavior occurs on 3 different windows servers with Microsoft Outlook 365 and different email accounts in IMAP.

Searches in Outlook do not return results relating to the body of the message but only relating to the subject, sender and attachments.

Windows search enabled, index rebuilt several times.

Tried with per-user catalogs enabled and disabled

Windows for business | Windows Server | User experience | Other

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  1. Luca Colombo [X-LAB] 0 Reputation points
    2026-02-25T08:19:59.0733333+00:00

    Hi,

    I forced Outlook to use its internal indexing instead of Windows Search.

    I added a DWORD value in the registry:

    PreventIndexingOutlook = 1

    under:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search

    and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/no-search-results-for-pop-imap-or-exchange-accounts-51c9d2c7-a3db-4358-afdf-50d3a9e57039

    Search performance improved significantly after this.

    Now we have no issues because we migrated all mail to Microsoft 365 with caching disabled, so everything uses online search.

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