No search box for a shared file?

[Dennis H.9]

When I share a file with someone - and they follow the emailed link, they do not have a way of search that file. There is not search option like there is when I go to the files in my dropbox.

Am I missing something?

[Stefanie]

Hi all,

What Ed was trying to say is that the content has to be in your Dropbox account in order for you to be able to search it. It's not sufficient to be logged into your account. Here are two ways to achieve this:

1. Instead of sharing a link to these folders with your clients, simply invite them to become a member of the folder, thus creating a shared folder. (This is what Ed meant by "share these folders")

2. If you'd like to continue sharing links instead of folders, that's ok too. In that case, the recipient of the link would first have to add the contents of the link to their Dropbox account. They can do so by clicking on the "Download" button and selecting to "add to Dropbox". Once the data is in their Dropbox account, they will be able to search it.

To sum up, it's currently only possible to search data that is in your Dropbox account. It's not possible to search the contents of shared links. If this is something you'd like to see in addition to the current search functionality, I'd be happy to forward this to our development team.

[Tom E.8]

Hi Sofia,

thanks for replying.

"2. If you'd like to continue sharing links instead of folders, that's ok too. In that case, the recipient of the link would first have to add the contents of the link to their Dropbox account. They can do so by clicking on the "Download" button and selecting to "add to Dropbox". Once the data is in their Dropbox account, they will be able to search it."

I see. Unfortunately that takes away much of the point, and they could as well just download the whole folder. As much as I love Dropbox myself, I'd like to make it as easy as possible for our customers and have them easily be able to find what they need and download just that!

"To sum up, it's currently only possible to search data that is in your Dropbox account. It's not possible to search the contents of shared links. If this is something you'd like to see in addition to the current search functionality, I'd be happy to forward this to our development team."

That would be very much appreciated!

Many thanks,

Tom

[Anne C.18]

Hey Ed, yes exactly. When you share a folder with someone, and that person opens the shared folder in their browser (so it's going through Dropbox's site), currently there's no Search field for the user to utilize. There's no way for the user to search through the shared folder.

[Christian A.12]

Sofia, that's exactly the feature I'm also in need of. Thank you Ed and Sofia for listening to your customers. Hope to see this feature soon 🙂

[Rich]

There's no way for the user to search through the shared folder.

Yes there is, if it's a shared folder.

If you've provided a share link to a folder, then no, the recipient cannot search it without adding the folder to their own Dropbox first.

[Anne C.18]

Rich, that's true only if the user is also logged into Dropbox. If they don't have an account, they don't get any kind of search box:

[Rich]

That's a share link, not a shared folder. A shared folder requires that they have a Dropbox account, and the folder will exist in their account. That enables them to search it. A share link to a folder is not searchable. That's what Sofia was explaining above.

[Anne C.18]

Okay, I'll make a new ticket for shared links instead of folders. Apologies for not knowing the correct nomenclature.

[Rich]

No need for a new post as Sofia already addressed it above. She'll pass the information on to the development team. I'm removing the other post so that we can keep this all in one location.

[Anne C.18]

Rich, I eagerly await any changes but the purpose of making a new thread was for greater awareness. The original post was made over a year ago in April 2015 and so far there hasn't been any traction or even developer feedback on if this will be implemented (or why it won't be).