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Dropbox content isn't searchable in Spotlight when using Mac OS Monterey 12.0.1
Dropbox files/folders are not searchable in spotlight on new MacBook Pro with M1 chip - Monterey OS 12.0.1. Have re-indexed spotlight. Have uninstalled and reinstalled Dropbox and rebooted. Have made sure Dropbox has full access in Security and Privacy. Help please?
I have found a solution, everyone! I hope everyone struggling with this will find this post. The problem isn't with dropbox, it's with Mac Spotlight. Which surprised me, as I always thought the finder search was separate from Spotlight, but apparently, on the back end, both are one-in-the-same. I've heard many times that re-indexing spotlight didn't work, but it does! You just have to do it a different way for everything to ACTUALLY 100% reindex.
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.
- 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)
Of note, I am on Mac OS Monterey 12.6 (21G115). My dropbox version is 158.4.4564. These are both the lastest, as of now, 10.3.2022.
Hopefully this helps! Changed my life - I can work again!
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I've upgraded from macOS 10.15.7 Catalina directly to macOS 13.1 (22C65) Ventura a few days ago and and since then have to report the exact same issues.
- Quick Look only works with files manually made available offline by clicking the cloud icon
- Spotlight cannot find anything when searching in finder window from within dropbox folder (dropbox root). Even when searching for folder names nothing shows up.
- Spotlight in finder window can surprisingly sometimes find things when starting search from "My Mac" or Macintosh HD root.
- Spotlight from menubar can surprisingly sometimes find things
(i.e. exactly not the search behavior described on https://help.dropbox.com/de-de/installs/macos-support-for-expected-changes )
I have not yet tried to completely recreate the spotlight index as of now.
Hi Jay,
Thanks for the article, but I don't find it accurate as my finder was not able to find files or folders that were held offline inside of dropbox.
I was proposed another solution via dropbox support which worked actually.
Solution:
Click preferences in your dropbox mini icon and log out. This will remove all your synced files, but once you log back in it will be in the original location on macHD rather than the new location.
- Jay
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hi cinnil, this information can be found in this article, along with other changes to the new version of the Dropbox desktop application.
it works! Thank you!
Hannah,
Been reading all of this. So far, I'm still on the old (and very functional) system. I am reading this with a lot of fear that things will not work. I guess my question is how did Dropbox do this and not test ahead of time that Spotlight would fail to work and put this out without a solution? It looks like users had to figure this out by themselves.
Doesn't Dropbox do user quality testing before releasing something? It seems like this should have been immediately obvious as soon as you tested it.
Comments? Thanks
Hi!
With the last Dropbox update on Mac the folder was moved (yes, you know) and now it sits in "Locations" section in Finder sidebar.
After this spotlight search have stopped working in Dropbox folder at all.
I've tried rebuilding index but no luck.
Anybody has the same issue?
