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
    2025-07-02T13:16:59+00:00

    Why do I have to do ALL that when it was working perfectly fine before? If they cannot move the search bar then just roll the app back to where it was before that horrible fix 🤨

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  2. Anonymous
    2025-07-02T12:25:23+00:00

    There is no way to move it back but work around is if you click on the diagonal arrow within an open page, upper right, to expand the page, then click the dropdown icon notebook pic, upper right to expand...then click the magnifier glass you should see the old search bar where you can then see the full titles.

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  3. Anonymous
    2025-07-01T19:11:17+00:00

    Great!! Here’s hoping for a positive response and outcome 🙌🏾

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  4. Anonymous
    2025-07-01T18:58:06+00:00

    Done. I'm also going to ping on Bluesky and Facebook.

    I'm close enough to Redmond, WA that I may even need to go to the headquarters to see if I can talk to someone face-to-face if this goes on for much longer. I avoid talking to people F2F whenever possible, but this is going on too long with no proper response.

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  5. Anonymous
    2025-07-01T18:17:46+00:00

    I would also suggest that we all go to this page (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/search-notes-in-onenote-539c3b56-accb-4e16-834d-61a6252ad65b) that is the supposed instructions for how to do a search in OneNote (that are out dated an incorrect after this last update broke it) and scroll down to the bottom of the page where it asks if the information was helpful, and of course select NO, then fill out the comment box as for why.

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