Desktop doesn't index Outlook IMAP files, laptop Outlook does index those same IMAP files

[PhilBurton]

I am a consultant with a desktop Windows 10 Pro 64 system that I use when I do both personal and client work at home. My laptop is also Windows 10 Pro 64. Both are fully patched up.

I have separate Outlook profiles for personal and work so that it's easy to sync calendar and contacts with my iPhone and iPad. Both personal and client email accounts are IMAP, and so are the email accounts on my iPhone and IPad. When I am travelling, I use those same Outlook profiles and IMAP account.

My laptop completely indexes all my Outlook emails, contacts, calendar items, etc. On my desktop, however, Outlook contents haven't been indexed for several months. Here is what I have already done to try to get desktop Outlook to be indexed again.

• Rebuilt the Windows index (via control panel applet)
• Compared the files types indexed by Outlook so that both OST and PST index settings on the desktop match the settings for those file types on the laptop.

Neither of these worked. What do I do now, short of completely reloading Windows? I am an advanced user, so if the answer is to change registry settings or something similar, I'm comfortable doing that. The usual Google searches did not yield any ideas.

I should mention that on the desktop only, I have several additional PST files. Those files are no longer indexed, along with the OST file.

Phil

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Are you using outlook 2013 on both?
Try the solution at Fixed: Search Broken in Outlook 2016 POP Accounts - check for the keys and delete or rename the ones that shouldn't exist.

 

[PhilBurton]

Diane,

I'm using Outlook 2013 on both systems.

Going through the solution for Outlook 2016, I could not find the registry keys to delete. So I'm assuming that these keys are specific to Outlook 2016, and the required keys for Outlook 2013 would be different. Also, the normal way to edit a registry file ( .reg file) doesn't work if all you want to do is add a key without values.

So I tried Plan B from your posting. I just eliminated Outlook from Windows Indexing. Suddenly search works for my Outlook 2013. Yes, it may be a slower, but I have a reasonable fast system and my Outlook OST and PST files are on an SSD, so performance is acceptable for me.

Thank you for solving my problem.

Phil Burton