Search file content using wildcards

[DJohnsonPPI]

I would like to do a sweep of our corporate Dropbox account to look for any unencrypted personally-identifiable information that might have inadvertently been stored in any file of any type.   The most urgent sweep is for Social Security Numbers (format ###-##-####) and Driver's License Numbers (various formats, but as an example AA###### (where "A" is any letter)).  Is there any ability to use wildcards like this in the search function?

[Hannah]

Hey @DJohnsonPPI, thanks for posting to our Community.

You can see all the ways you can search for files on Dropbox and which search features are available to which plan here.

Also, if you use the Dropbox desktop app, you can search for files using the local Dropbox folder, which is just like any other folder on your computer, just with syncing abilities.

Let me know if you have any questions.

[DJohnsonPPI]

Hi Hannah -

Thanks for the suggestions.  The local Dropbox app is not an option as we have multiple Tb of files stored, so caching them to my local hard drive just to search them is impractical.  None of the search options listed on the link you provided describe if wildcards can be used - only predictive text based searching seems to be available.

Any other thoughts about how to accomplish this?

[Megan]

Hi @DJohnsonPPI, at the moment you can't search using wildcards. 

However, you can always up-vote this relevant idea, that seems to fit your needs, based on what you described. 

I hope this helps!