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csnarain's avatar
csnarain
Brass Contributor
Jul 04, 2020

OneDrive Search File Contents

OneDrive is no longer searching file contents. I used to get search results from file contents before but all of a sudden it's showing results only if it matches the filename. What could be the issue? Pls help

 

Update: Microsoft has finally fixed this issue. I'm getting my search results as expected. Others, pls share your experience.

  • bloating's avatar
    bloating
    Copper Contributor

    csnarain I thought I'm the only one who's experiencing this. I also contacted the customer service but it doesn't help and still frustrating. I hope Microsoft fix this issue immediately. 

    • csnarain's avatar
      csnarain
      Brass Contributor

      Guys,

      Looks like Microsoft finally fixed this. My search results are working as expected.

      • ybbond's avatar
        ybbond
        Copper Contributor

        csnarain wrote:

        Guys,

        Looks like Microsoft finally fixed this. My search results are working as expected.


        May I know how is your "working as expected" is? Because OneDrive still return nothing if I search by the file content.

         

        My expected is:

        say I has this file.txt that contains "hello world" text inside it. If I typed 'hello' or 'ello' to the search bar in OneDrive, it will return file.txt as result.

         

        Thanks!

  • vhutheesing's avatar
    vhutheesing
    Copper Contributor

    csnarain Please please let us know when this is going to be fixed.  It really is a non-starter for me to beginning moving all of my files over to OneDrive if I cannot search them by keywords in their content.  Thank you.

    • csnarain's avatar
      csnarain
      Brass Contributor

      vhutheesing I have no clue. Like you and many others, I too am waiting for a fix from Microsoft. For whatever unknown reason, there has been dead silence from Microsoft on this. I really don't know how to bring this to their attention.

  • alexgda's avatar
    alexgda
    Copper Contributor

    I'm having the same problem. I cannot search inside PDFs files. I'm using OneDrive Web. Google Drive is able to do so. This is a real pain point, as I was considering subscribing to Office 365 but I'll wait until this problem is resolved. I have a lot of files, content search is essential.

  • Riaz1969's avatar
    Riaz1969
    Copper Contributor

    csnarain I am facing the same issue.  Someone said to use Content in the front of the word.  However, that gave me results of filenames and none of them had the word Content or the word I was searching for.  MS needs to make this easier for users

     

    There is also this option.

     

  • csnarain's avatar
    csnarain
    Brass Contributor
    Is Microsoft listening? More and more customers have started reporting this and the experience is becoming annoying day by day.
    • antenor69's avatar
      antenor69
      Copper Contributor

      I don't believe Microsoft is listening. This bug eeds to be urgently fixed!

      • csnarain's avatar
        csnarain
        Brass Contributor

        antenor69- I totally agree with you. I'm literally fed up with Microsoft on this. They've been sitting on this bug for months. I badly want to escalate it but not sure how and where to.

    • csnarain's avatar
      csnarain
      Brass Contributor

      hn_GBThanks for notifying me on this issue. Yes, it's indeed frustrating. Also as Microsoft points out, searching from one's computer (desktop/laptop) is not a workaround. I have TB's of data in my OneDrive and I don't maintain any indexes in my computer. I always rely on Onedrive's Mobile/Web interfaces and it's indexing service for my search queries.

      • WenDan's avatar
        WenDan
        Copper Contributor

        Is there any progress in this error? I'm having the same problem on onedrive web and one drive app on ios.

         

        Is there realy so many months no good search on Onedrive??

  • csnarain How are you running the search? Via the web client? On a mobile device? Or are you relying on desktop sync (Windows or Mac)?

     

    Have you tried any of the standard trouble shooting steps?

    • rimon70's avatar
      rimon70
      Copper Contributor

      Mike Williams 

      Have you find any solution for that other than moving into Google drive? 

      Thanks. 

       

      • sg1180's avatar
        sg1180
        Copper Contributor
        That’s it, you got it perfectly right. I’ve moved to Google Drive already.
        Cheers!
      • csnarain's avatar
        csnarain
        Brass Contributor
        Any help on this? I'm still not able to search any file contents. Only filenames. No clue on what's going on.

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