It's not ideal not being able to search for content using an exact phrase in Dropbox.

Thanks for your feedback FrankGaz​, although you can search exact terms in filenames, Dropbox search doesn’t support exact phrase matching within the contents of files. Quotation marks are supported for exact phrasing in file names, and you can also use title:"your phrase" to match an exact phrase in a document title.

The community has been rallying around this one, and we're hoping with threads like this we'll be able to move the needle on upgrades.

It would be great if Dropbox paid any attention whatsoever to posts like this, but this has been going on for YEARS. They don't pay attention at all. The community has been complaining about it for forever and all Dropbox says is "But added exact phrase searching in file names," which is a bit maddening because it's not in any way related to exact phrase searching within documents. It's as if someone said "I broke my arm" and then another person said "But the sky is blue!" 

I know it's not your fault. You're doing your job as a Community Manager and I appreciate what you do. I'm not trying to be rude to you and I apologize if it comes across that way. It's just maddening that a company as large as Dropbox would remove one of their most useful features and then pretend that an entirely different feature is a useful replacement. They are gaslighting the entire community. Many of us paid for Dropbox initially in order to use that feature. Why would they remove it? I used to recommend Dropbox to everyone, but now I encourage everyone to look elsewhere (for example, Google Drive offers exact phrase searching within documents). 

It would be great if a developer could hop on here and say ANYTHING that helps to explain why Dropbox would make such a stupid decision and why they are basically spewing garbage at their customers who are complaining about it. 

FrankGaz wrote:

It would be great if a developer could hop on here and say ANYTHING that helps to explain why Dropbox would make such a stupid decision and why they are basically spewing garbage at their customers who are complaining about it. 

I dont work for Dropbox, sorry, but what I can say is that wont happen. All you can do is post an idea in the Ideas | The Dropbox Community forum or look at what is available which you can see here. Full text searching is available but its plan depenedent.