Dropbox is not searchable in Mac OS Monterey 12.0.1

[robinwn]

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?

[Hannah]

Hey @jmu1981, I've just sent you an email, so we can look into this. Just make sure to get back to me, when you can.

[DH171981]

I am having the same issue on a new iMac, When I search for anything in a Dropbox folder nothing shows in Finder unless I click on "This Mac".

I am using macOS Monterey Version 12.6

[MarkBarLev]

Having the same problem, but only in the folder that the most recent update of the dropbox back end created with my user name on it (business account). There's another folder inside my dropbox folder that is searchable using Mac spotlight search just fine. I have an open ticket with Dropbox support but as of yet they haven't had any solution.

[davidarden · Accepted solution]

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!

[Hannah]

Hey @davidarden, thanks for sharing this with us!

If everyone can try this and let us know if it worked for you, that'd be much appreciated. 

Thanks!

[MarkBarLev]

Hi David. Did you try doing this with just the Dropbox folder first and that didn't work but when you did the entire drive it did? I haven't consciously done the whole drive, but I did re-index a big chunk of it, to no avail. But if the above is true, I can try again.

[JimmyDinh]

Thank you, @davidarden!!! It worked for me!!! I AM ELATED!!!

[davidarden]

@MarkBarLev Hi Mark. I tried pretty much everything in the book. The only thing that worked was reindexing the entire HDD, per the instructions in the Spotlight section of system preferences. Also, there were a few posts that spoke of using terminal commands to reindex. None of that worked for me. Good news is this is pretty simple and took about an hour to fully reindex everything, at least for me, and 100% fixed the problem.

[davidarden]

@JimmyDinh Nice!! Glad I could help.

[MarkBarLev]

Great! Thanks. I’ll try it, especially since escalated Dropbox support takes days to get back to me and doesn’t have a solution.