Frequently Asked Question

Introduction

Outlook manages an index of all of your e-mails on your computer for fast searching, however, over time it may become corrupted.

Instructions on how to rebuild the Outlook search indexes is proved below.

Mac Version

1. If Outlook is open, quit Outlook by right-clicking its Dock icon, and select Quit.
2. From the Finder, click the Go menu, and select Go to Folder...
3. In the Go to Folder dialog box that appears, enter the following path and click the Go button.
   

   ~/Library

   Note the tilde (~) character.  If this is done correctly, the contents of your account's Library folder will appear.
   
4. Navigate through your account's Library folder to the following directory:
   • Group Containers
   • UBF8T346G9.Office
   • Outlook
   • Outlook 15 Profiles
   • Main Profile
   • Data
5. Locate the files that start with Outlook.sqlite.  Note that there will likely be multiple files that match this pattern.  If you find any of these files, move them to your desktop.
   
   • Outlook.sqlite
   • Outlook.sqlite-wal
   • Outlook.sqlite-shm
   • Outlook.sqlite.bak
6. Re-open Outlook by clicking its Dock icon.  When prompted to rebuild the database, select Repair.  The repair process may take a long time, and is dependent on how much data you have in Outlook. Once the repair is completed, Outlook should open normally.
   
7. Test if you can successfully search for emails.  If so, then delete the Outlook.sqlite files from your desktop.

Windows Version

(coming soon)