Why can I no longer search file contents on Onedrive?

Anonymous
2024-10-01T16:41:33+00:00

Once upon a time, the Onedrive search feature allowed you to search file contents, as well as file names.

Now it appears that Onedrive only allows you to search file names.

When did this change, and why? Content searches were a very practical feature.

Microsoft will lose users to better services (such as Google Drive) if it continues to make regressive changes like this. Being able to search file contents is a very low bar in 2024.

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneDrive | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2025-05-08T14:49:30+00:00

    Just tested. It's still not working for me. I wonder why it works for some and not others.

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  2. Anonymous
    2025-05-08T14:40:46+00:00

    After being unavailable for approximately a year, the search functionality returned a couple of weeks ago, and I observed that it now operates reliably, including the ability to search within file contents.

    Despite the return of this functionality, I think that for users who expect consistency and stability from cloud services, OneDrive is too unreliable.

    Based on this post, I tested my OneDrive and the search function is now working for my tenant. I can search within Word documents, PDF documents, JPG files, etc. I'm amazed!

    As others have said, this is fundamental functionality for a cloud storage service so I'm pleased it has finally be restored. Lets just hope it remains and is stable.

    Thanks for prompting me to try it again!

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  3. Anonymous
    2025-05-08T07:36:51+00:00

    Thank you, I'm going to take this up (again) with customer support.

    kpt

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  4. Anonymous
    2025-05-07T21:49:40+00:00

    Oh boy, I have no words for this customer support service. I know a personal customer does not pay a fortune, but still...

    I swear I can search file content of text files, Office files, PDFs, and even JPEGs (not metadata; pure OCR).

    Not as good as Google Drive's, but I'm sure this person who answered you has no clue whatsoever.

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  5. Anonymous
    2025-05-07T21:26:57+00:00

    Good news - it still doesn't work for me, but perhaps it will before the end of my current subscription.

    I emailed support, and got this response yesterday (6 May 2025); it's completely impractical to rename thousands of files.

    We completely understand your concern. However, it is not possible to search for a file using the text written inside it.

    You can only search for the file by its name. If needed, you can rename the file to make it easier to find based on your preference. Let us know if you need any further assistance.

    Thank you for choosing Microsoft.

    Regards

    Shivam H.

    OneDrive Support Team,

    Working Hours: 09:00PM to 5:30AM PST | Mon-Fri

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