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Forum Discussion
Smart Sync - Windows Explorer Search Not Working
I am testing Smart Sync for our team. All fine but when files are 'Online Only', Windows Explorer search can't fined them. I have tried a few PCs in our team and all have the same problem, so I dont think it is an individual PC issue. We are all running Windows 10. Any ideas?
- Rich
Super User II
I don't know if that's the intended outcome or not, but it would make sense. The files aren't in Explorer anymore, so Windows might not be able to index them.
Rich wrote:
I don't know if that's the intended outcome or not, but it would make sense. The files aren't in Explorer anymore, so Windows might not be able to index them.Thanks Rich. Im pretty sure the idea is the files work in exactly the same way, so are searchable when 'Online Only'. Dropbox Support have said they are looking at it, but a couple of weeks have passed now without an update.
We're having the exact same issue on certain Windows 10 installations - some but not all.
- kudos
Following this - have the same issue.
Workaround was to locally sync the files, which defeats the purpose of smart sync! :-)
Youve probably got indexing switched off, "control panel" search for indexing "then rebuild index" or tick "index this drive" where your dropbox is located
grahamaikman, I appreciate your desire to help, but it seems as though DropBox representatives have confirmed this problem to be a "known issue" earlier in this very thread. Its seemingly just taking them a very long time (many months, or longer) to solve this problem. As those DropBox representatives probably alreay know, the inability to search offline files in Windows makes the (otherwise incredible) "SmartSync" feature pretty worthless. That is because, if most are your files are offline files, then the only way to find them is to manually plow through all your DropBox files and folders. Without paying extra for the "SmartSync" feature (as we do), we would have had full search of all of our DropBox files and folders for these past many months. Hopefully DropBox will solve this problem soon.
I imagine we can still use the search function on the web version which might at least indicate where a file is stored for easier way of navigating to it in File Explorer... not ideal but a workaround in the meantime.
- No this is not the problem. Done that multiple times.
Indexing is definitely on. I will rebuild it, but it is already on.
Ross_SDropbox Staff
Hi all,
We are currently working on this issue and I hope to bring you a concrete update soon. At this point all I'm able to share is simply that we're activley persuing a solution here. I'll update more when I have a timeline on the fix.
Many thanks for highlighting here!
Hi there,
I am a Dropbox Business admin using Windows 10 with Dropbox desktop app installed. For online-only files, can they be indexed and searched through file explorer rather than dropbox.com? I initially thought that this is not possible but someone I know who is also a business user said that he is able to search his online-only files on file explorer.
- Jay
Hi Jay Thanks for the quick response! As I was digging more into this after I posted the query, I another forum thread that talked about this https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Installation-and-desktop-app/Smart-Sync-Windows-Explorer-Search-Not-Working/td-p/206724/page/3
Now I am a bit confused because on that thread it seems that searching for online-only files should be possible and Dropbox is currently looking into this issue?
After SmartSync was introduced, most of our files are online only.
Today i needed to find a folder location for a named like file.
I started searching a "like filename" in the Browse for files dialog of a browser, in the Dropbox folder. It found nothing. I relaxed the search, it found 2 files, not what i knew existed. I said - ok - the search is now broken in dialogs or DropBox paused.
Trying again with an Explorer window and DropBox active, same result.
I ended up going online, to search for the files. For 15 seconds, DropBox online showed exactly the same files as on my PC, but left an end placeholder. After time, it populated the correct results with all files and i found the needed folder name.
I personally split the search concept into - file properties, metadata and file content. Ok, the file is online, and has no content. Same with metadata. But Explorer knows file properties - file name, real size, dates and attributes.
How do i get Windows Search to index at least the names of the files that are online?
Thanks,
