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Dropbox not searchable in MacOS Ventura 13.1
Since the recent Dropbox update, I can no longer search for files in Dropbox on my Mac. I have been using Dropbox for over 10 years and have never had this problem before. It's making life extremely difficult and making me think about moving entirely to Google Drive, although I don't really like Google that much. But at least it's free, whereas I am now paying Dropbox for a less functional service than I had previously.
Does anyone know how to get this function back?
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- Dropbox we need a fix or at least some communication!
If I can’t search my files I can’t continue with Dropbox.
I tried the option above of reindexing my whole hard drive on my Mac. No luck. 😞 Did you try this solution? If this doesn't work, I don't know what to do.
This solution came from @davidarden. It worked for me. I can now search my Dropbox folders when I couldn't before (on MacOS 13.1)
Tutorial is here on apple's forums: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253479408
Just giving credit where credit is due.
In case that goes away, instructions are also listed below.
- Open System Preferences and go to Spotlight's Privacy tab.
- Add the entire hard disk INTO the Privacy list.
- Maybe wait 30s (I closed the window then re-opened it).
- Remove the hard disk FROM the Privacy list.
Spotlight will re-index. After finish re-indexing, the search in folder works for me.
(To see if Spotlight is indexing, use Command+Space to invoke Spotlight, and type in something. Wait a second. You should see a progress bar to show indexing progress)
- Thanks for replying.
After reindexing my whole Mac hard drive as above I did the Dropbox folder again.
Sort of improved. Not perfect but better. I think. Thanks Just adding: it worked for me – thanks so much!
Hello everyone!
I bought a mac studio running ventura, and I cannot search my dropbox folder. If I search from the root directory everything works fine, but if I search within the dropbox folder no results appear.
Another interesting thing is that initially "older" files and folders would appear in the search, but newer files not!
I wiped everything and reinstalled from scratch and restored from time machine and from a CCC disk backup, and now none of the files appear in the search results.
I tried forcing a reindexing but that does not seam to work.
I tried installing a new dropbox app and allowing the dropbox folder to be populated from the cloud, and that does not seem to work either...
Any help would be appreciated
- Hannah
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hey gzamba, sorry to see you're having trouble with this.
If you've rebuilt your spotlight index and it's still not working, perhaps you can try the solution provided by another user here, as it seems to have worked for other users as well.
I have tried that and it did not work.
I wiped everything again and reinstalled everything, then restored my files from my backup without linking the dropbox app.
everything works fine within the dropbox folder which is now just an ordinary folder (since dropbox is not active).
Once I link and activate dropbox, spotlight search within the dropbox folder does not work!!!
Also, if I log in from a different account, that does not have dropbox, then searching within the dropbox folder of the main account works fine!!!
All of this makes sense to me. The problem lies with dropbox and ventura and how they interact...
I guess that if I let the new dropbox app move my dropbox folder to the cloudstorage folder functionality should be restored???
Any ideas?
- Megan
Hi gzamba, can you clarify the version of the app that you use at the moment?
You can find this by locating your Dropbox icon on your menu bar, next to your WiFi and hovering your mouse there. It sounds like you haven't updated the app to the new Dropbox for macOS, right?
If you have any available screenshots from your searches and how they appear on your end, that'd be great, thanks!
Hi there!
I have updated the dropbox app to 175.3.5544 and I still have the same problem.
I use dropbox for most of my day-to-day files.
When I use spotlight WITHIN Dropbox folder I get no results. If I do the same search from "this mac" I get the correct results.
Also, when I do the same search with EasyFind everything works well!
So, there is something wrong with dropbox snd spotlight
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