Post not yet marked as solved
It's rather simple. Your app can just use NSFileManager to synchronize the ~/Library/Mail directory to the NSHomeDirectory or any subdirectory of your application's Sandbox. Afterwards the elmx files and attachments are indexed by Spotlight. So you can use your exsiting implementation, that makes use of the Spotlight API to retrieve emails.With NSFileManager you can check, whether the app has read access to the Library. If not you can show an NSAlert with some advice to grant full disk access for your application. I think this is a clean solution, that respects the security mechanisms of macOS. However it's not a good user experience to open the security settings for adding the app. A dialogue like for contacts or calender would be better.
Post not yet marked as solved
We have at least the confirmation from Apple that there is currently no alternative command line tool for mdfind that can query emails.The following workaround works, if the user has enabled full access to the hard drive. Unfortunately, it is not a good user experience to have to open the settings instead of confirming a dialog window. But it works.If an app synchronizes the emails with its sandbox, all emails are back in Spotlight's index and available through its API for this app. Since the solution does not bypass security mechanisms and uses official interfaces like NSFileManager, I hope that this solution will be preserved in the final release.
Post not yet marked as solved
Ok, thanks very much for your answer. Because there is already a mechanism to protect emails by default, there shouldn't be a conceptual problem. If a user has granted full disc access, spotlight results for all data on the disc should be available. Unfortunately that's not the case for Catalina.Apple could introduce another entitelement and security setting to access emails like calendar and addressbiik. I assume, that is unlikely.I hope, that Apple will offer a solution for the final release or at least clarify its plan for Catalina,but I'M afraid that we have to preapare a workaround.
Post not yet marked as solved
Thank you very much for supporting our cause.We had opened a DTS support ticket, but it was immediately closed again. We asked in follow up, if we could at least get the information if the new behavior is a feature or a bug.If it is a new feature, it has technical and economic consequences, because we have to invest in a probably expensive technical solution. Maybe the cimmunity manager @eskimo can help us.Unfortunately, we can assume that bug reports will not be processed. I think renaming the bug tracking system to Feedback Assistant is a clear message.
Post not yet marked as solved
I will open a support ticket. We need to know, whether we have to invest in an own index solution or just need to wait for a bug fix. Do you have some information about the plan?
Post not yet marked as solved
We realized, that even Automator has a problem, if one use Spotlight in a workflow. Alternatively one can use Find Email Messages, but this takes minutes before Automator shows a result.
Post not yet marked as solved
Thanks for your confirmation. We have posted the feedback FB7074402.
Post not yet marked as solved
Thanks for your answer, that sound not good. We have filed afeedback with the number FB7016929. Do you have any solution for a workaround? Do we have to index the mail directory ourselves with SK Search Kit?
Post not yet marked as solved
Thanks for your answer. The solution was quite simple. I had to remove the script folder of the app, so that the directory was re-created. I think it was a security issue, because the directory was created by the app from the store and I tested this feature with a build from Xcode.
Post not yet marked as solved
I can confirm this solution. I had to activate the beta programm profile on my internal ssd of my productive environment. Then I have installed macOS Catalina on a partition of an external hard drive. During the system set up I had a gray screen but after a restart I could go through the setup steps sucessfully. Afterwards I have removed the beta program profile from my internal ssd.
