Outlook 2013 search indexing set schedule

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I have been routinely experiencing the search warning: "Search results might be incomplete because items are being indexed". Why is it that the search indexer can't just run at night, on a specific set schedule? When it runs during the day, I can't find any of my emails during normal business working hours.

Is there a way to schedule the search indexing process? Side note--I'm using an SSD, so is the indexing process even necessary? Should I just turn off the Windows search indexing process entirely?

FurryWombat

Posted 2015-03-25T20:38:46.893

Reputation: 145

Really? No way to schedule the search indexer process? Ridiculous! – FurryWombat – 2015-03-25T22:04:39.137

How many e-mails do you have? How many new e-mail come per hour? How big is your documents directory? How much space is free on the SSD (what percentage is currently utilized)? – Sun – 2015-03-25T22:13:14.567

500GB SSD with 65GB used space (13% utilization). About three years of emails... so, around 150,000 inbound and 90,000 outbound. I receive about 150 per day, and send about 90-150. – FurryWombat – 2015-03-25T22:16:27.157

You can manually turn on/off with net stop wsearch or start of course. Easy to add that to a schedule but see the other comments. My question is whether it is actually the client side index that is the problem or a server-side index (MS Exchange)? – Julian Knight – 2015-03-25T22:18:46.763

@Julian Knight So, unless I am mistaken, the solution would be to add a task that runs command-line: 1) "net stop wsearch", 2) "net start wsearch" every day at 1AM. – FurryWombat – 2015-03-25T22:22:14.190

Yes, but as sunk818 says, are you really sure you understand the ramifications. You can stop and start whenever you link but I don't think it will help. Are you using Exchange? – Julian Knight – 2015-03-25T22:25:14.783

Yes I'm using Exchange. I understand the ramifications. Just hate not being able to search my emails during normal working hours. – FurryWombat – 2015-03-25T22:26:59.227

Do you need to search 240k emails every time you perform a search? How far back (date wise) do you typically need to search for the e-mail you need? – Sun – 2015-03-25T22:39:34.170

Not every time, but surely, often. – FurryWombat – 2015-03-25T22:54:47.243

Answers

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Windows Search is constantly indexing Outlook e-mails so your search results are up to date. If you run it once a night, then all your e-mails from the last index will not appear in search results. If you subscribe to Office 365, unindexed e-mails will be searched on the server and presented to you, but with some delay.

Some suggestions to minimize the message:

Rebuild the index in case of data corruption:

  • Start
  • Control Panels
  • Indexing Options
  • Advanced
  • Rebuild

Or Restart the Windows Search service.

  • Go to Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools
  • Double click Services
  • Find Windows Search
  • Right click Windows Search and select restart
  • Close Services
  • Wait a few seconds or minutes for the indexing to complete.

Source: http://michaelwlind.com/2013/04/03/outlook-stops-indexing/

To Rebuild Windows Index via command line

@echo off
net stop wsearch
del "%programdata%\microsoft\search\data\applications\windows\Windows.edb.bak"
move "%programdata%\microsoft\search\data\applications\windows\Windows.edb" "%programdata%\microsoft\search\data\applications\windows\Windows.edb.bak"
net start wsearch

Source: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-files/rebuild-windows-7-search-index-via-command-line/21efe850-b5e5-426e-89e1-b696997810e5

Sun

Posted 2015-03-25T20:38:46.893

Reputation: 5 198

I am aware that it runs constantly to add new emails to the index, but why there would be 4-6hr periods of time where this message appears in place of ANY results whatsoever, is beyond me. My hope was that if I rebuilt the full index every night that this would eliminate the issue entirely. – FurryWombat – 2015-03-25T22:18:05.607

To confirm, this is a Microsoft Exchange Office365 email account. But when I click to "see more results from the server", there is a huge lag, so it's a useless fallback. – FurryWombat – 2015-03-25T22:19:46.893

To the heart of the question, your message above under heading "Rebuild the index..."... can this be built into the Windows task scheduler to rebuild the full index every night while I am sleeping, and not while I am working? – FurryWombat – 2015-03-25T22:21:02.877

Added the bit about rebuilding the Windows Index via command line thanks to @JulianKnight. Please talk to your Exchange Admin about setting about online archiving. We get 50GB of online archive as part of our Office 365 subscription. This is a separate box that group policy archives for anything older than 90 days. I can search both using search "All Mailboxes", but 99% of the time I use "Current Mailbox" which is the last 90 days. Your e-mail will only grow and you need an archive process to keep the "Current Mailbox" index a reasonable size for performance issues. This will keep you happier. – Sun – 2015-03-25T22:28:44.457

thank you. Also, to be clear, we used to use the archiving feature, but it just made the process even more inefficient because when I need to find something buried deep, and it's in the archive, it's impossible to find. This solution should cover it!! Thanks! – FurryWombat – 2015-03-25T22:54:11.757

If that is what you're going to do... at least use the clean-up feature in Outlook 2013 to consolidate your threads. This will create fewer emails leading to faster search times and shorter indexing times. In the long run though, you really need a solution that scales. I don't know what e-mails you have, but having that many to search just seems absurd. – Sun – 2015-03-25T23:21:28.917

Already using that feature but good call. – FurryWombat – 2015-03-25T23:23:14.003

Asked: 2015-03-25T20:38:46.893

Viewed: 5 012 times

Active: 2017-03-21T01:54:05.433