In OneNote the Search bar has moved, How do I put it back to where it was?

Anonymous
2025-05-22T20:51:54+00:00

Version 2504 Build 16.0.18730.20122 on Windows 11.

I have been using OneNote for years, all of a sudden when I opened it up today, the Search bar has moved from its correct place on top of the pages list on the side, to now being in the upper right corner of the actual notes main page.

When I type in a search, the list of pages where the search term shows up now covers up half of the notes field, meaning you can't read half of the page to see if the search result is actually what you are looking for or not, making the entire search function pretty much useless.

How can I move the search box, and more importantly, the list of pages that contain the search result, so that it no longer covers up the actual notes page that I need to read?

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneNote | Other | Windows

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.

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  1. Anonymous
    2025-07-11T00:01:13+00:00

    As someone who spent 22+ years in ITS support, I've found that writing to a company about any problem is usually a waste of time. I don't care what the question, they will never give you a straight answer (kinda like US politicians). I did one on one support where there was only a solution and no hyperbole. I did both hardware repair (easy - find what's broken and replace it), operating system support (not quite as easy, but definitely doable), and software support (hardest of all) where thee was no fixed set of programs being used. I didn't have a book. I didn't have a database where I could copy and poste, I had to know the answer or at the very least know where to find the answer.

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  2. Anonymous
    2025-07-10T17:08:17+00:00

    I agree! Lazy customer service!!

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  3. Anonymous
    2025-07-10T15:22:48+00:00

    Hi,

    This change makes no sense, and is so annoying; step 3: there is no search group, I cannot see where to moved search back to the right, so all page titles are highlighted instead of left view

    Those instructions are old and out of date. It was a copy/paste response from Microsoft without actually reading the issue to see that is is a NEW problem and not just a generic question about how to use the search. Just illustrates how lazy and outdated the responses from the forum moderators are. They would rather give a wrong answer quickly instead of spending any amount of time actually looking into a reported problem to try and actually fix any issues.

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  4. Anonymous
    2025-07-10T15:08:17+00:00

    Thank you but your missing the point, we want it back far right, your article say far right, it's no far left and works differently; everyone here s trying to move it back right to work as it was before the update.

    That article was NOT a way to fix the issue! The point of posting that article was to demonstrate that Microsoft's own "How To" instructions are incorrect AND to suggest that everyone also needs to fill out the feedback at the bottom of that page to attempt to inform Microsoft that their own instructions are out of date and incorrect.

    So not only is the search bar broken, but the Microsoft instructions for how the search bar works are old and no longer accurate.

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  5. Anonymous
    2025-07-10T07:42:47+00:00

    Thank you but your missing the point, we want it back far right, your article say far right, it's no far left and works differently; everyone here s trying to move it back right to work as it was before the update.

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