I figured it out on WIndows 10 but I upgraded to Win 11 this morning and it's GONE. I forgot how I did it on Windows 10 but I did it.
Windows 11 File Explorer no longer remembers search history; how to reenable?
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Anonymous
I frequently use File Explorer to search for local files. Until recently, it would remember my past file searches, but beginning two days ago, without warning, File Explorer no longer remembers those searches; the search bar is empty. How do I reenable it?
I've confirmed that search and file history is enabled in Privacy settings. Any suggestions? Thanks.
Windows 11 Home 10.0.22621 Build 22621
Windows for home | Windows 11 | Files, folders, and storage
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
146 answers
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Anonymous
2023-12-29T01:46:24+00:00 -
Anonymous
2023-12-17T13:36:07+00:00 Please Microsoft, let us go back to a good feature that you once innovated. Why do you spend all your time and money on making new emojis that no one asked for that are also worse? Just give us the intuitive search history back that earlier and much more skilled Microsoft employees developed. It literally feels like we would all be better off if you had a strike and stopped programming. If it's not broken, THEN DON'T FIX IT!!! Well, now it IS broken so just click restore earlier version.
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Anonymous
2023-12-17T13:04:32+00:00 omg, yes, they magaged to butcher the search on Win 10 too :O this is crazy. Are they doing it on purpose?
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Anonymous
2023-12-17T03:11:06+00:00 So, funny thing. I went back to Win10 because of this issue. Figured that since Windows 10 isn't supposed to be getting any more feature updates, the search bar and the search history would be safe there.
Well, the security update KB5033372 came out a few days ago and lo and behold, they did add some new "features". They made the explorer address bar including the search box shorter. Search history still works at least, but the X icon next to each entry is gone and the history box looks really bad. You can only see 3 most recent searches in there, you have to delete (by hitting the del key on keyboard, because the X is gone) the most recent ones to be able to see older ones.
Like, did anyone even look at this before it was shipped?
I repeat this again in case anyone who makes some of these decisions happens to read this:
Please for the love of god stop bundling your security updates with feature updates. Just stop. Stop.
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Anonymous
2023-12-14T21:10:53+00:00 This does not work, but very glad to be able to cancel the suggestions in searching my own files. I know what I am looking for and do not want suggestions. BUT, why the search history is no longer there is perplexing and time wasting., Isn;t WIN11 supposed to be an improvement over WIN10. Please update this and let us know ASAP. Many thanks.