Microsoft is investigating a problem that prevents Outlook search from displaying recent emails in desktop apps running Windows 11.

“When searching in Outlook Desktop on Windows 11, you might not see the most recent emails in the search results. If you check Windows Indexing Options in the Control Panel, the indexing might be running slow or might be paused,” explains Microsoft.

Until a solution is found, Microsoft has released a workaround for users. To do this, Microsoft has advised Windows 11 users to mitigate the error in Outlook search by disabling Windows Desktop Search and switching to the built-in Outlook search engine as a workaround.

To disable the Windows Desktop Search Service for Outlook, users must add a new PreventIndexingOutlook registry key.

The problem with Microsoft Outlook search affects POP (Post Office Protocol), IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol), and offline Exchange accounts. This is because Outlook’s search function uses the local Windows Search service to index emails.

Microsoft 365 and affiliated Exchange accounts are not affected as they use Service Search, which is not affected by this issue.

The sources for this piece include an article in BleepingComputer.