Apple Mail, Siri AI search, is it really this bad ...?

Software
1

I decided to try Apple Mail. Previously using MailMate, figured Apple Mail might be worth a go in the “new AI age” with on-device Siri AI.

I needed to send an email to a Contacts smart group. In MailMate, I just start typing in the name of the group and it autofills. Mail can’t do that, for some unknown reason. There are a number of workarounds (drag the group from Contacts to Mail, start the mail from Contacts (!), etc.), but it just seems ridiculous that the native platform mail app isn’t aware of the native platform Contacts groups.

Then realized I needed to reference an email from a lady named Judy. Searched in Apple Mail, and it couldn’t find it. This is after using Apple Mail for almost a week, on a newly-added email account. Maybe it’s just the Mail search. Went to Spotlight, which, again, has been indexing since launch day and seems to be done. It couldn’t find it.

Well what the…? Went to MailMate. Boom, there it is. Went back to Apple Mail, found the folder, scrolled to the message. There it is. With the message on screen, I did the search again. It found an email from her from over a year ago, but not the one from a couple weeks ago - the one that, again, is literally in the message list on my screen.

Googled for a solution. “Rebuild your Spotlight index,” “rebuild your mailbox,” etc. Which seems ridiculous to me. This is getting into Outlook “you’re using it wrong” type territory.

Is Mail this bad? Is this a complete fluke? I just can’t believe that it’s this bad out of the gate.

2

I use this feature all the time, and it works perfectly for me on all of my devices. Search is vastly improved with new Siri and Apple Intelligence, though it was pretty bad prior to that. I can’t speak to your experience, but mine has been, if not stellar, at least adequate.

3

Well that’s bizarre. Just tried again, and it still isn’t doing it for me. I’m wondering if there’s some setting that needs to be tweaked - although that’s a weird thing to have to tweak, if so.

4

Sorry you are having the trouble. I don’t recall needing to tweak anything. Here is an example of what happens when I begin typing a group name in Mail.

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5

I love MailMate for its correspondence view.

6

IMO Yes, it’s that bad. Too much fiddling for stuff that is “just supposed to work” I gave up and moved to Thunderbird. At least there I know I’m going to have to tweak it but it works and stays tweaked when I get it set correctly.