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Dropbox is not searchable in 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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Only in the dropbox folder.
- Jay
Dropbox Community Moderator
Thanks for the info, in order to look into this matter in more detail, would it be possible to reach out to the email associated with your forum profile? Yes, please.
- JayThanks, I've gone ahead and contacted you via email. Please could you reply to it as soon as you get a chance!
Seems to be an issue with Monterey. I got this in a chat with Dropbox support:
"Thanks for this. I can see that the issue here is that you are on a version of MacOS Monterray, where they have implemented the File Provider API. On these versions, it limits what can be accessed from Dropbox.. So you won't be able to use spotlight search from local folders for teh Dropxbo items., Whereas the global search should still work. However, one other way that you should still be able to search for files in Dropper is through our own search feature. (The one when you click on the Dropbox icon in the menu bar, at the top right near the clock)"
Never heard of "File Provider API". I sure don't understand why Spotlight can't find local files in my local Dropbox folder, but apparently it can't. If I search "This Mac", Spotlight finds all those local Dropbox files. It's a Mac Mystery.
Hi John, have you seen any alteration in this? This obviously requires me to drop dropbox, which I will probably do today since I just ran into this issue. Probably 10 years on dropbox but this would be idiotic as an on-going issue. Doesn't sound like it is even on the radar as an issue from what you got in chat. Any updates you care to share?
Yes! The problem seems to have mysteriously gone away. Who knows if it was Apple who fixed the problem or, much less likely, Dropbox. Either way, I can now search in my Dropbox folders from Finder.
FYI, I'm using a latest-release MacBook Pro and Monterey 12.2.1. Maybe the last update to Monterey fixed the issue. The MBPro shipped with an earlier version of Monterey, and one or two subsequent updates hadn't fixed it. Maybe it was the 12.2.1 update that did it.
I'm seeing the behavior reported originally by the OP in macOS Monterey 12.3, but worse: searching from the Spotlight menu does not produce any results either.
Only searching from the Dropbox menu and using Dropbox's own search mechanism produces results.
I'm using the Mac version of Dropbox v145.3.4888 running on macOS Monterey 12.3 and all files in the folders I'm searching are downloaded on my Mac — none of them are cloud-only files.
- JayHi akmedia, thanks for the report. Could you try contacting the support team for them to investigate this matter in more detail on their end?
