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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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it works! Thank you!
- 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.
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.
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.
- Hannah
Thanks for reporting this to us, sawin1.
If you re-build the Spotlight index and are still facing the same issues, do let us know.
THANK YOU.
I did not expect that it is so easy to solve.
I had the problem for 2 months now. Now I can work again as usual.- I have the same issue.
@Chris_26 which fix specifically are you referring to? What worked for you?
I'm still stuck...
@davidarden -- Thanks so much! Worked!
