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

This was definitely how it worked until around this time last year.

Somebody has already stated which update that broke it, but by the time I found this thread, the option to remove the offending update had been removed.

My workflow involves me switching between thousands of directories, usually centring on a dozen or so over a period of a few weeks until a project has finished. Having to search the entire system over and over and over is extremely time-consuming!

Prior to this, all recent directories and files appeared the moment I clicked in the search box.

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.

Indeed, loss of search history is what the OP is about.

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.

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.

As I mentioned, Microsoft changed the code to display results-as-you-type. The old code that waits for you to press Enter before starting the search is also the code that includes the history feature.

The equivalent results-as-you-type code in Windows 10 keeps only three items in its history and that's based on clicking somewhere outside of the search box. That is, if you were to type "cat" and wait for results and then backspace and type "dog" and wait for results, neither would go into the history at that point. As soon as you click outside of the search box, "dog" would be added to the history, but not "cat". That's a reasonably good design and doesn't have to be limited to 3 items.

FYI, Windows 10 had the wait-for-Enter style search with history from 2019 to 2023. Windows 10 was reverted back to the old results-as-you-type code with only three history items at the end of 2023. That change was a side effect of Microsoft complying with EU requirements to decouple Bing from Windows search. It's likely the same reason the Explorer search changed to results-as-you-type on Windows 11, but for whatever reason, it got implemented even more dumbed down with zero history.

Privacy is not an issue. The Explorer search history is specific to your user profile. It's no more an issue than browser history or the files you save in Documents. It's all connected to one user account. It's just an implementation detail that we'd like to see addressed.