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Forum Discussion

bobrobin32's avatar
bobrobin32
Helpful | Level 5
8 months ago
Solved

How can I search for a symbol in a filename, like @ or ! ?

I would like to mark my important files this way, then could filter down to those. 

 

  • Megan's avatar
    Megan
    8 months ago

    Hey Brian​ B.9, let me also jump in here!

    Kindly note that as Mark​ mentioned these are special characters, and searching for them will not provide any results on the web platform, this is an expected product behavior.

    As a possible workaround, you can always try renaming the questioned file with compatible characters which does not include any special characters.

    In any case, thanks for all the details! We've logged this internally for our team's awareness.

    That said, if you notice anything else regarding the search function, please don't hesitate to reach back out!

6 Replies

  • Mark's avatar
    Mark
    Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II
    8 months ago
    bburns88 wrote:

    I would like to mark my important files this way, then could filter down to those. 

    Those are unsupported characters within the Dropbox system so renaming them either wouldn't work/fail OR cause issues elsewhere. 

    https://help.dropbox.com/organize/file-names 

  • bobrobin32's avatar
    bobrobin32
    Helpful | Level 5
    8 months ago

    They're not in that list though - they're valid characters for Windows files. I haven't had any problems with the filenames and synchronization, but if I try to search for @ or ! in Dropbox while looking at images, nothing comes up. 

    The idea would be to be able to mark images as favorites, without having to rely on Dropbox's star system. 

  • Nancy's avatar
    Nancy
    Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
    8 months ago

    Hey bobrobin32! Just to clarify, you want to use the search bar on www.dropbox.com and locate files that contain either the @ or the ! symbol. Correct?

  • Megan's avatar
    Megan
    Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
    8 months ago

    Hey Brian​ B.9, let me also jump in here!

    Kindly note that as Mark​ mentioned these are special characters, and searching for them will not provide any results on the web platform, this is an expected product behavior.

    As a possible workaround, you can always try renaming the questioned file with compatible characters which does not include any special characters.

    In any case, thanks for all the details! We've logged this internally for our team's awareness.

    That said, if you notice anything else regarding the search function, please don't hesitate to reach back out!

  • bobrobin32's avatar
    bobrobin32
    Helpful | Level 5
    8 months ago

    Thanks, Megan - yeah, it would be great if they could allow searching on those characters - it's just a nice cross-platform way to tag/star files.

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