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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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- I use CleanMyMac to re-index spotlight with a press of a button & Alfred to replace spotlight search / just some tips 🙂 both are super useful apps in general
Glad to hear it!!
Awesome!
- Nancy
Dropbox Community Moderator
Exact same issue except im on monterey 12.6.1. and dropbox v161.4.4923.
Want to note that this only happened after the update where the Dropbox folder was moved to ~/Library/CloudStorage. It really messed up my workflow and I wish I could go back. If anyone knows how to undo that and move back in dropbox versions, that'd be great.
Additionally, have two issues:
1. Preview no longer works properly on files in dropbox, all files just shows as the dropbox logo in spotlight
2. Can no longer jump to the folder location with CMD+return on a file that is held inside dropbox. It will open the file as if you clicked on the file every time if the file is held in dropbox.
Lastly:
Tried Nancy's solution to reindex and it doesn't help. I reindexed and restarted multiple times. No difference.
Other issues are the same:
In Spotlight (cmd+space) :Searching for a file in the Dropbox folder *by name* works, but not *by content* (PDF files that should be indexed without a problem)
In Finder search : neither by name nor by content works in the Dropbox folder.
Elsewhere on the same volume is fine.
I have tried adding then removing the Dropbox folder to the Spotlight privacy exceptions list, that didn't help.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?
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
