OneDrive search not working

Success. l renamed the nested folder rather than the overarching folder that holds all of the nested folders on my One Drive. This nested folder (12+k pdf files) is now bringing back the right search results. The folder name did have a number in front of the description i.e '02. Xxxxx'. This time l removed the numbering aspect. I am not sure if this helped or not as the other folders l have with numbered folders were OK, I e. bring back the correct results without renaming.

I still think this is very unsatisfactory. There should be specific advice such as whether prefixing folder names with a numbering sequence is good practice I.e should be avoided with a large number of files and why. Also why does this happen anyway? Thanks to all who posted comments.

It's now 2022, and this is still a problem. You can literally look at a file name that has a string, then search for the file, and OneDrive will not return any results. Absolutely ridiculous.

Yes, it’s annoying but the solution is simple i.e. create a new high-level folder and drag all files into it, then after a while reverse the procedure. Notwithstanding this fix, it would be better for Microsoft to address the problem rather requiring OneDrive users to develop workarounds.

Thanks! I appreciate your reply. I'll give it a try.

Thanks Andrew. Like everyone, this is beyond frustrating. After the news about the Optus hack, I can't help but wonder if we're at risk of losing everything in the OneDrive Cloud or it being hacked. Microsoft have shown (without any doubt) just how incompetent they are at not being able to fix a program that the developed. I have no confidence that their cyber security is any better than their pathetic search function in OneDrive.

Now that I've got that off my chest, can I ask a question of you re the work around? I have all my files in hundreds of folders and sub folders. Do I need to make one folder then transfer every file out of every folder and sub folder into the newly created folder to get the search function to work? Do I then have to transfer them all back again?

Thanks, Greg