Implementing Boolean Operators in Searches.

[Petercard]

Is there any way to use Boolean operators when using the search function in DropBox ?

When I used the search I usually get too many hits, so a simple way of narrowing down the results would be very beneficial.

[Jay]

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[Petercard]

Hi FrankGaz,

I started this thread back in Feb 2019.

I cannot believe we are in 2022 and this basic issue with DropBox searching has not been addressed and we are still talking about it.

Since those days, the size of my DropBox storage has grown to 1.2TB and i still rely on the search in W10 to find anything.  However this does not work when accesing my DropBox from my iPad or iPhone. 

There's no point saving away terrabytes of data if you can't reliably find anything.

I stress - reliably, not hit and miss.

Please DropBox address this issue - I would be happy to pay more for better search functionality.

Most other part of DropBox are very good.

PC

[wilson_energy]

Right on! @Petercard, how do you search in W10? Because of Smart Sync, I don't have files on my hard drive so W10 can't index them.
@Walter REALLY? This is still on the "not right now" list? You had the capability in the desktop app ... bring it back, somehow!

[Petercard]

Hi @wilson_energy  and @Walter ,

I always have "Make available offline" ticked in W10 Explorer for all over DropBox.

yes - what a waste.

My Windows Search index contains over 1,000,000 items - so it frequently breaks, takes about 5 days to rebuild.

Hence I always have a second laptop as a hot spare.

[wilson_energy]

@Petercard - good idea, buy a second laptop to make search functional as a workaround for Dropbox's weak points. Dropbox should put that on its FAQ or something. Maybe work with a laptop vendor to offer a special discount for users. <snark>

[HELP_ME_please]

Does anyone know of a stand alone app that we could use to search dropbox online.  Clearly boolean search would be better.  In the past I have downloaded the folder to the hard drive and used windows search but; 1)  that defeats the utility of dropbox online and 2)  it is very slow.

[FrankGaz]

@HELP_ME_please, I don't know how you would go about searching Dropbox files that aren't synced to your computer apart from using DB's useless "Full Text Search" feature.

But if you do have a synced folder on your computer there are lots of free / open source utilities that search the files/folders on your computer; many are better than the native Windows search. You could experiment with some of those. Just make sure you have it search / archive / index the Dropbox folder on your computer. 

You could also Google ways to sync your Dropbox files with your Google Drive account (assuming you have enough storage in Google Drive). This would allow you to use Google's search features. BUT...in that case, depending on the size of your archive, it might be easier to just switch to Google Drive entirely and buy additional storage as needed. You can also use the Google Drive for Desktop app to automatically sync everything. The only caveat is that Google Drive files (docs created in Drive or converted to Drive) may not be editable locally -- you may have to edit them in Drive. 

[HELP_ME_please]

Hi FrankGanz,

Thank you. I like using dropbox but want to search within dropbox online. Yes I can download a copy to a hard drive or use google drive but that is a lot of work for what used to be built into dropbox.  I really hope dropbox implements a true search feature.  It  has become a huge weakness in the online dropbox.

[jerryboettcher]

Please add this.  To me the days are long past when it was always productive to search for a simple string.  It will usually yield too many results.  If a search returns everything, it is as unusable as no search at all.  I do advanced searches multiple times a day in Outlook, for example.  OneDrive will let you do advanced searches as well, for comparison, example FILENAME:WORD1 AND FILENAME:WORD2 AND NOT FILENAME:WORD3 AND NOT FILENAME:WORD4*

[wilson_energy]

Yep. Just tried to figure out if I had a copy of an academic paper already buried somewhere in our files. Searching on "Name of Article" doesn't work. Wondering if we should try switching to something else ...

[FrankGaz]

Hey Dropbox, FYI: I pay for your service and I have about 1TB of files. I needed every file with a specific string in the file name. But that wasn't an option. Thanks a million.