I'm not sure why nobody from Box mentions this, but.... if you're using Box Drive, for any folder that you mark as "Make available offline", those contents *will* be indexed by Spotlight. So if you're migrating from Box Sync (which causes your files to be local anyhow), just migrate to Box Drive and make those same folders be available offline. They will be indexed by Spotlight as before.

The day Box Sync will no longer work will be the day I cancel the box.com account. Using Box Drive is a no-go without support for Spotlight. With Box Drive I'd be choosing to mark for offline access most of the Box.com content except for videos. As the actual files are local to my Mac I'd expect them to be returned in the spotlight results. Not doing so for the files that are actually stored locally is plain dumb. There's no technical excuse for not indexing them.

Box sync worked so well and we are NOT loving box drive. We have to search for files constantly and box drive makes it impossible. We will be going back to box sync. PLEASE don't get rid of it! or we will have to find a different service to move all our files to.

I don't understand why it's so difficult to download and host all of the metadata. It should be a nearly instantaneous lookup from the Box servers.

I use Everything search, which essentially does the same thing, indexes file/folder structures, and the size of the database is a little over 100MB for several million files.

I would use Box Sync, but I don't have the local drive space to host the several TB of data.

Box Sync works wonderfully well and does exactly what it should. I will NOT replace it with Box Drive until Drive no longer blocks the OS from having access to local files.

I do not want Box to be my primary OS with substandard search tools. I want it to enhance the workflow with my chosen OS.

If Box Sync stops working before Drive has implemented this basic functionality then I will no longer be a Box customer.

Will start looking for a different solution very soon as Box is not Spotlightable.... on MacOS

Agreed - this is a total deal breaker. Ability to search all files on a Mac with spotlight is fundamental. Finding a different solution.

Not being able to search for Box files using Spotlight on a Mac is a total dealbreaker.

I'm going to be using Dropbox from now on.

Was really surprised this is not included as a feature for Box. We've used several file sharing platforms, and they all could do this. Please consider adding it.

I will echo the comments here regarding the native search. I would like to add that for users who do not work with millions of files, it is infinitely beneficial for Box to emulate a local folder and behave the way we would expect. I have used Box since 2013 and would strongly reconsider my loyalty considering this lack of care. I've used Box Sync up until now when getting an M1 Mac forces me to switch to Box Drive.

I'm on a Mac. This is a must-have feature. Old Box sync worked with Mac Spotlight - it was a huge help quickly locating files. Without Spotlight support I need to log into the web interface. It's a real pain.

I have to have the ability to search folders for files within Windows/File Explorer. I'm often hunting for very specific information within several files and need to rapidly open the files or open multiple files at the same time. None of the search options available today with Box Drive give me the option to do any of this.

There's no reason we shouldn't be able to have the Box Sync search capabilities with files saved for offline use.

Bad enough that you can't use Finder to search Box Drive files. It might be less of an issue if the Box Drive search was any good, but it's not very good. You can't even resize the darned window!

This is a serious change from Box.Sync. I want all my files downloaded on my computer. I like the current search function and treatment like a regular folder on my computer. We have all files stored on several computers and can continue working off-line whenever there is a calamity. These happen as we see currently in Texas. As long as this is not available I will not switch to Box.Drive.

Dear Box, Please add my voice to those requesting search indexing for Mac OS Spotlight. This is a significant limitation for me in terms of working across various platforms.
Gordon Bigelow
Rhodes College

I agree with all the previous commenters that not including a robust search feature in Box Drive that can be used with Windows File Explorer is inexcusable. Even your own support page discusses the importance of searching for files. The entire point of searching for files is to find files that you don't know the exact location of. If I have to navigate manually to the correct folder first then there is no point to searching.

At the very least, improve the integrated box drive search function to allow sorting and filtering.

No excuse! Dropbox does it just fine.

And your search feature is worthless. No resizing, no details view, no hierarchy, NO NOTHIN!

I am disappointed, I still use BOX SYNC (I saved the installer ***), because BOX DRIVE is useless in WINDOWS SEARCH. I think that they should, at least, allow the possibility of downloading some folders, at least those marked on the cell phone for "offline access", or as it was called in BOX SYNC, "sync with computer"

The inability for Windows Search to index offline files is a complete show stopper from transitioning from Box Sync. We have a custom application that uses Windows Search SQL to query the index (metadata & content) of locally stored PDF documents.

If Box Drive is using junction points that prevents Windows Search unable to index these files then the whole application is rendered useless. FWIW we previously tried BoxSearchManager and it's very limited compared to Windows Search and also a *lot* slower making it an impractical replacement.

This is still not planned? I cannot switch to drive just to be told to use your search when its vastly inferior to native search on the mac. It feel like Box is trying run off none commercial users. Very frustrating.