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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.
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.
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
The solution to this problem is obvious. Don't use OneDrive.
As december 8th the issue is not solved
In the meanwhile, on Google Drive you can search within documents, including searching only within specific folders if you like, as well as searching by document type.
It’s astonishing that a company as well-established as Microsoft and a brand as dominant as Word can mess up so majorly. And the problem described in this thread isn't the only one that I've come across in Word.
Google Drive: