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bwhight's avatar
bwhight
Helpful | Level 5
9 years ago
Solved

Smart Sync - Windows Explorer Search Not Working

I am testing Smart Sync for our team.  All fine but when files are 'Online Only', Windows Explorer search can't fined them.  I have tried a few PCs in our team and all have the same problem, so I don...
desktop
Setting up the apps
  • Lucio's avatar
    Lucio
    8 years ago

    The Windows search functionality, that allows finding files set to online-only through the Smart Sync feature, is now available on computers with versions of Windows 8 and above, starting with the beta version 60.3 of the Dropbox desktop application that you can find here.

    When this is available in the stable version 60.4 next week, your computer should automatically update and receive the fix.

    Thanks to all that reported this and we appreciate your patience on this matter.

    Happy syncing!

Lucio's avatar
Lucio
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
8 years ago

Thanks mxoh and SteveWeston for your reports. I'm currently investigating what could be happening since the solution should work for files and folders, and we have already received positive feedback from a lot of users as well. Would it be possible for you to submit a support request with a few screenshots and mentioning this thread so that we can take a closer look?

Also, I'd like to point out that the Windows search functionality, that allows finding files set to online-only through the Smart Sync feature, is only available on computers with versions of Windows 8 and above.

This means that if you're using the search capabilities of a Windows 7 computer, you won't be able to find online only files and folders in the results. This is something outside of our control since this particular version of Windows OS doesn't provide the functionality required to search and find placeholder files.

You can always use Dropbox.com to search and find all of your files. But if it's imperative for you to use your Windows OS capabilities, you can upgrade your OS to a newer version.

Richard P.44's avatar
Richard P.44
Helpful | Level 7
8 years ago

Hi Lucio

I'm getting the same issue - since dropbox updated to 60.4.107 - new files dont show up on a search. Using Windows 8.1

Is there a way of rolling back to earlier versions>

Richard

  • Richard P.44's avatar
    Richard P.44
    Helpful | Level 7
    8 years ago

    Hi Any news on this - I've reported it to support but not had any fix

  • Richard P.44's avatar
    Richard P.44
    Helpful | Level 7
    8 years ago

    Hi

    I've managed to reinstall Beta 60.3.89 and the search function works fine - so later updates must have overwritten

    If you do this need to delete the Dropboxupdater.exe file in C:\Program Files (x86)\Dropbox\Update or else it updates you back up to the latest version

    Let us know when the latest version is corrected

    thanks

    Richard

  • Lucio's avatar
    Lucio
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    8 years ago

    As mentioned before, we have received positive feedback from users stating that search is working for online-only folders, but we're also aware of the reports here about it still not functioning on file search.

    We'll make changes that we believe will address this within the next few weeks, so please make sure you update your Dropbox desktop application and keep trying.

    If this issue is still persisting for you around the end of January, please let us know more details about it here since, by then, we believe this would have been fixed.

    Thanks for using Dropbox, and for your reports that are leading to product improvements.

     

  • localonly's avatar
    localonly
    Explorer | Level 4
    8 years ago

    When smart-sync'ed we can search and find folders in Windows 10, but filenames are not being returned.

    We are getting no results for (confirmed that they exist) filenames.

    Making files Local allows them to show up in search results.

    Is this the expected behaviour for smart-sync - only able to search for folder names, and not file names?

  • my_name_is_'s avatar
    my_name_is_
    New member | Level 2
    8 years ago

    Hello, I have a new W10/64 PC where explorer cannot index any 'Smart Sync' files that I have not yet opened.  I can find Dropbox files that I have opened only. I can find everything in my local filesystem just fine.  I have rebuilt the search index in windows without success.  I have reinstalled Dropbox to the latest version, also without success.  This is a problem for me at my new job, where I cannot always guess where to find the files I need.  My colleagues are not having this problem; however, I cannot confirm 100% as they are certainly searching for files they have already opened when I am asking.

    In case it matters: the PC is an IBM ThinkPad X280

  • Lucio's avatar
    Lucio
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    8 years ago

    We recently started rolling out a new beta that we believe will improve the behavior of searching for online-only files on Windows.

    Feel free to install it from here, and let us know if this is the case for you.

    As mentioned before, this will also be rolled out in a stable version soon.

    Thanks to everyone that reported this again!

  • SteveWeston's avatar
    SteveWeston
    Helpful | Level 6
    8 years ago

    It works! It finally works!!  Thank you

     

    This thread is closed due to inactivity. Please feel free to create a new topic here. 

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