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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.
A Microsoft file hosting and synchronization service.
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.
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.
My search returns no results in OneDrive, even if I search for a file by its name that's right there in the folder on the screen. I have this issue in my browser, in the OneDrive app on PC, on iPad and on iOS. I use OneDrive to store thousands of sheet music files and backing tracks that I can pull up as a performing musician. I used it for years to quickly search and pull up my tracks while playing live. Now, it returns "No results" for anything I search for. Absolutely useless for me now other than to store files that I can't search or find. I built up everything in OneDrive and it worked great - then you had to change the app and break a super basic functionality like "search" - are you kidding me. What other function in a cloud file storage app is more important than "search"? I can't think of one, aside from the obvious need to ensure that the file itself doesn't disappear. If you can't get "search" to work reliably, I'm nervous I'll wake up one day and my files will actually disappear and you'll have no answer. I have no choice but to start migrating my OneDrive over to Google, iCloud, Dropbox or any other cloud services that have mastered the basic search function. Unbelievable.
I have the same problem.
It's a big problem: we use onedrive also for a business way.
I don't want switch to GDrive: but I'll be forced! I follow this post: maybe I can find the way!
Luigi
Didn't change any setting -- it just began to work again.
Maybe they're "rolling out" a fix that hasn't yet reached all users. In fact, I think I remember having to log in again recently (something I don't usually have to do, since I stay logged in on Chrome). Maybe logging out & logging in again might work?
It still doesn't work for me. I can only search within the contents of my files when at home with my desktop PC, which has all my files on. I can't if away from home with my laptop, which doesn't have enough memory for all my files, so has to access the cloud.
It's very annoying. I've asked for help via One Drive "Contact Support" and not had a reply, which is also annoying.
kpt