From 55e731ade968d72959b2dc636f22a803983f88c1 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: guettlibot <guettlibot@syself.com>
Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2026 00:56:35 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] fix(search): sort search results by received date descending

Previously searchEmails and searchEmailsGlobal used FTS5's `ORDER BY
rank` (relevance ordering), making results appear in a seemingly random
order rather than newest-first like the normal email list view. After
merging the FTS results with note-search results the combined list was
also never re-sorted.

Change the SQL to ORDER BY e.received_at DESC and add an in-memory sort
on the merged list so the final result is always newest-first,
consistent with the rest of the app.

Closes #509

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
---
 .../repositories/email_repository_impl.dart   |  8 ++-
 test/unit/email_repository_impl_test.dart     | 64 +++++++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 69 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/lib/data/repositories/email_repository_impl.dart b/lib/data/repositories/email_repository_impl.dart
index 911c1a9..fd10524 100644
--- a/lib/data/repositories/email_repository_impl.dart
+++ b/lib/data/repositories/email_repository_impl.dart
@@ -2922,9 +2922,9 @@ class EmailRepositoryImpl implements EmailRepository {
 
     final sql = accountId != null
         ? 'SELECT e.* FROM email_fts f JOIN emails e ON e.rowid = f.rowid'
-            ' WHERE email_fts MATCH ? AND e.account_id = ? ORDER BY rank LIMIT 50'
+            ' WHERE email_fts MATCH ? AND e.account_id = ? ORDER BY e.received_at DESC LIMIT 50'
         : 'SELECT e.* FROM email_fts f JOIN emails e ON e.rowid = f.rowid'
-            ' WHERE email_fts MATCH ? ORDER BY rank LIMIT 50';
+            ' WHERE email_fts MATCH ? ORDER BY e.received_at DESC LIMIT 50';
     final variables = accountId != null
         ? [Variable<String>(ftsQuery), Variable<String>(accountId)]
         : [Variable<String>(ftsQuery)];
@@ -2942,6 +2942,7 @@ class EmailRepositoryImpl implements EmailRepository {
     for (final e in [...emailRows.map(_toModel), ...noteRows]) {
       if (seen.add(e.id)) merged.add(e);
     }
+    merged.sort((a, b) => b.receivedAt.compareTo(a.receivedAt));
     return merged;
   }
 
@@ -3113,7 +3114,7 @@ class EmailRepositoryImpl implements EmailRepository {
 
     const sql = 'SELECT e.* FROM email_fts f JOIN emails e ON e.rowid = f.rowid'
         ' WHERE email_fts MATCH ? AND e.account_id = ? AND e.mailbox_path = ?'
-        ' ORDER BY rank LIMIT 50';
+        ' ORDER BY e.received_at DESC LIMIT 50';
     final variables = [
       Variable<String>(ftsQuery),
       Variable<String>(accountId),
@@ -3134,6 +3135,7 @@ class EmailRepositoryImpl implements EmailRepository {
     for (final e in [...emailRows.map(_toModel), ...noteRows]) {
       if (seen.add(e.id)) merged.add(e);
     }
+    merged.sort((a, b) => b.receivedAt.compareTo(a.receivedAt));
     return merged;
   }
 
diff --git a/test/unit/email_repository_impl_test.dart b/test/unit/email_repository_impl_test.dart
index ff24382..b93f7be 100644
--- a/test/unit/email_repository_impl_test.dart
+++ b/test/unit/email_repository_impl_test.dart
@@ -576,6 +576,70 @@ void main() {
       expect(results.first.mailboxPath, 'INBOX');
     });
 
+    test('searchEmailsGlobal returns results sorted by receivedAt descending',
+        () async {
+      final r = _makeRepos();
+      await r.accounts.addAccount(_account, 'pw');
+
+      await r.db.into(r.db.emails).insert(
+            EmailsCompanion.insert(
+              id: 'acc-1:1',
+              accountId: 'acc-1',
+              mailboxPath: 'INBOX',
+              uid: 1,
+              subject: const Value('Older report'),
+              receivedAt: DateTime(2024, 1),
+            ),
+          );
+      await r.db.into(r.db.emails).insert(
+            EmailsCompanion.insert(
+              id: 'acc-1:2',
+              accountId: 'acc-1',
+              mailboxPath: 'INBOX',
+              uid: 2,
+              subject: const Value('Newer report'),
+              receivedAt: DateTime(2024, 6),
+            ),
+          );
+
+      final results = await r.emails.searchEmailsGlobal(null, 'report');
+      expect(results, hasLength(2));
+      expect(results[0].subject, 'Newer report');
+      expect(results[1].subject, 'Older report');
+    });
+
+    test('searchEmails returns results sorted by receivedAt descending',
+        () async {
+      final r = _makeRepos();
+      await r.accounts.addAccount(_account, 'pw');
+
+      await r.db.into(r.db.emails).insert(
+            EmailsCompanion.insert(
+              id: 'acc-1:1',
+              accountId: 'acc-1',
+              mailboxPath: 'INBOX',
+              uid: 1,
+              subject: const Value('Older meeting'),
+              receivedAt: DateTime(2024, 1),
+            ),
+          );
+      await r.db.into(r.db.emails).insert(
+            EmailsCompanion.insert(
+              id: 'acc-1:2',
+              accountId: 'acc-1',
+              mailboxPath: 'INBOX',
+              uid: 2,
+              subject: const Value('Newer meeting'),
+              receivedAt: DateTime(2024, 6),
+            ),
+          );
+
+      final results = await r.emails.searchEmails('acc-1', 'INBOX', 'meeting');
+      expect(results, hasLength(2));
+      expect(results[0].subject, 'Newer meeting');
+      expect(results[1].subject, 'Older meeting');
+    });
+
     test(
       'searchAddresses returns results sorted by most recently used',
       () async {