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Forum Discussion
Spotlight Search Doesn't Link to Files in Dropbox in macOS 13 Ventura
After upgrading to macOS Ventura, I was prompted to upgrade to "Dropbox for macOS 12". I proceeded with that, it moved my Dropbox folder to ~/Library/CloudStorage and confirmed all was successful. No...
- That’s the same problem I had. I solved it by doing a complete clean install of dropbox. You may not need to do all of this, but to be safe, in Dropbox settings Selective Sync uncheck all of your folders and wait for them to be removed from your Mac. Once that’s done, unlink your Mac from Dropbox preferences. You should see the Dropbox getting started screen. Quit Dropbox and move the app to the Trash. Remove all dropbox files from ~/Library being careful to look at the path name. Only remove things that are within a Dropbox parent folder. Look in library application support, and library preferences. Empty the Trash. Restart your Mac. Reinstall Dropbox from dropbox.com. Once reinstalled, to make things faster sync only one small folder and wait for the prompt that new Dropbox for macOS 12 is available. You should see the message within a few minutes of reinstalling Dropbox. Allow it to upgrade and migrate your files to the new location. Once that’s done you can then sync all your folders. Let your Mac index itself and the problem should be solved.
Update: I got an initial reply from the support team, but it was just like the “template”, like this:
As I understand you are having issues when using Spotlight search to open your files.
Please try the following to resolve the issue:
- Open the Dropbox folder in Finder, wait a little while, then retry the Spotlight search.
- Since the Dropbox folder was moved to a new location with the new macOS update, it needs to be re-indexed. Opening the folder can prompt this.
- Another reason is that the entire disk might need to be reindexed. Follow these instructions from Apple to rebuild the Spotlight index.
- Note: The help article mentions the Documents folder, but you need to use the Dropbox folder instead.
- Also note: In some cases the entire hard disk may need to be re-indexed.
If none of the above steps seem to help, please let me know and I can investigate further.
Then I sent him back with details. Let's see what comes next.
The support team haven’t offered any solutions - same old generic responses
The next reply (in response to my lengthy description of the issue) sounds somewhat hopeful:
Thank you for alerting us to this problem. Dropbox engineers are aware of the problem and are working on a solution.
Sorry for any inconvenience this is causing. We'll update you shortly on this issue.I sincerely hope this “shortly” will come very shortly.
It wont help - they wont response. You have to open a ticket. But if you do, it wont help as well, because solutions they provide doesn't work. Stay on the old version and do not update! There are no other solutions at the moment
I'm not sure whether to believe it or not, but it looks like they *may* have fixed this.
To start off with, we have 3 Macs - a Pro, iMac, and a mini. I attempted to install an earlier version on the Pro. It did not end well, I had to do some stuff on Terminal to remove the bad effects of what I had done. I strongly discourage anyone from doing this. Anyway, then I went out and grabbed the latest release from Dropbox website - and this time it installed a newer release: V168.4.4802 - and search is working under this release. I went out to our other two Macs and somehow Dropbox had automatically upgraded to this release as well.
AND - it looks like they're keeping the location in standard Dropbox folder: /username/Dropbox. Yeah!
So far so good, but I'm still suspicious because there's now an alert on the Dropbox icon, and when you click on this it says "As part of this update, your Dropbox folder and files will move to a new secure location on this Mac", i.e. ~/Library/CloudStorage. I think we already know that this does not end well. So I'm sticking with this release.
Needless to say, none of this gives me a warm & fuzzy feeling.
- You are still using the old version
Dropbox themselves don’t know what they are doing
If you click get started then you will install the new version and it will stop working
If Dropbox is in your home folder then this is the old version
This is how unorganised Dropbox are they release a new version and obfuscate which version you are truly running Hi
I was having the same issues, and after reading all these forums, nothing worked, then this is what has worked for me at present
I went into `~/Library/CloudStorage
Right clicked on the Dropbox Folder
Pressed "Make available offline"
And suddenly, the green ticks that were previously visible on each folder started coming in, and in a few seconds, I saw the files being searchable and opening from spotlight. I had also previously done the re-index method of the folder, but it hadn't worked.
Hope this helps.
Search is working properly for me on 3 different Macs using Version v168.4.4802; AFAICT it is properly syncing subfolders and Spotlight as I did not have to do anything else.
Regarding the prompt to upgrade - I also see it - but I am deliberately NOT choosing that option. I could be wrong, but I suspect that this prompt to upgrade is a bug - seeing as v168.4.4802 is the latest version.
But given the complete lack of communication from Dropbox regarding this issue it's hard to know anything with 100% certainty.
- Do you have their email address this person from Dropbox? Can we email them directly to push them
Did some digging on the Dropbox site, and found this page ("Expected changes with Dropbox for macOS"). Under "Searching through Finder won’t find all content in your Dropbox folder." I found two interesting bits:
- "Search using Spotlight isn’t affected." – No comment.
- "Searching through Finder will only find online-only files or folders that have been previously accessed on your device (...) This will also affect features that depend on searching through Finder. For example, Smart Folders." – I checked and indeed: Smart Folders don’t work anymore in Dropbox after the "upgrade"!
This just seems to be getting worse...
If only we could create the “hard link” folder to ~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox, instead of “symbolic link” (aka soft link) ...
If it could be done, I guess the issue (theoretically) will be fixed.
However, since macOS Catalina, creating a hard link “to a directory” cannot be accomplished.
Quick update to my previous post: extant Smart Folders don’t work anymore after the Dropbox update – but if you re-do the search and create a new Smart Folder, it will work.
[Update: Release v168.4.4802, but I did click the upgrade option. Haven’t downgraded yet, hoping for another solution.]
