Windows 11 File Explorer no longer remembers search history; how to reenable?

Hi Patricia,

What I'd recommend doing is switching your Explorer to the Windows 10 version. Since the old version is still built into Windows 11, you can do that easily, even as a Standard user. The easiest method is to use a free tool I made called SwitchExplorer. Just download and run. Nothing to install.

I downloaded and ran the SwitchExplorer tool, but it did not seem to work... I tried several searches, restarted computer, etc, but it still did not seem to work... ???

The instructions are still incorrect. There is not a selection for Permissions and History.

The correct path to History is Settings / Privacy & Security / Search Permissions / History .

There is a listing for "Search history on this device" with an On/Off switch.

This did not restore the function of viewing previous searches.

Hi Patricia,

What I'd recommend doing is switching your Explorer to the Windows 10 version. Since the old version is still built into Windows 11, you can do that easily, even as a Standard user. The easiest method is to use a free tool I made called SwitchExplorer. Just download and run. Nothing to install.

I'd also recommend either uninstalling OneDrive or carefully reviewing how it's being used and how it may be affecting your work flow. For example, by default OneDrive syncs your Pictures folder. If you have those 350,000 photos within Pictures, they will be subject to syncing to the cloud which could seriously affect performance. OneDrive can be a very useful tool, but I don't like how it's foisted on users because when syncing goes wrong (or the user misunderstands what OneDrive is doing) more data can be lost than saved.

Also, review and adjust which folders are indexed using the Indexing options control panel. That's key to getting good search performance.

Keep you search settings like this (i.e. everything unchecked):

Note that second section heading is "When searching non-indexed locations". You don't want to search contents in non-indexed folders. That takes too long. Just make sure everywhere you want to search is indexed.

Hopefully that's enough to get things working better for you.

I always had display as you type but also had search history. So I don't think that is what caused the change. Again, regardless of the cause, bottom line: make it a feature one can turn on or off as they see fit for their profile and use. The lack of search history has hindered productivity for many people.

In all variations of Windows 11, you have select-as-you-type in the main Explorer window. That is, as you type characters, Explorer will select the file or folder that starts with the characters typed.

Results as you type in the Search box is a different thing. The early releases of Windows 11 did not show results as you type in the search box. You had to press Enter to initiate the search. Upon pressing Enter, that search term was added to the drop-down search history. AFAIK, when the search box was changed to results-as-type, the history feature was gone.

I would have to start with an old Windows 11 build and apply updates one by one and check the behavior to see if there was a time that there was results-as-you-type in the Search box with history. Maybe there was, but I don't recall seeing that. If I get a chance to run through the updates, I'll report back.

Several months ago one of the MS reps advised me on this thread that this is not a mistake, rather it is now a "feature." I presume it has to do with privacy. Yes, I do miss it. Yes, I do wish they made it optional, but mediocre Microsoft support for Windows is now the norm.

YES! I don't understand why they messed with that feature. At least leave it as a toggle option for those of us who found it so viable to our daily work and productivity! Come on, Microsoft. The issue has been brought to your attention long enough ago - Fix it.