As described herein, a high-availability server system includes at least a source server system and a target server system that dynamically restore message object search indexes. Both the source server system and the target server system store copies of a mailbox database and a search index for the mailbox database. As changes are requested to the mailbox database, events are added to event lists maintained at the source node and the target node. When the data storage system at the target server system enters an error state, the source server system sends to the target server system a set of data that the target server system can use to generate a copy of search index. The target server system may then resume applying events in the event list to the search index. In this way, it may not be necessary to completely re-index the mailbox database at the target node.