Search for Box Drive content from Explorer/Finder Search
We are currently not planning to implement this feature and will continue to prevent all Box Drive results from appearing in Explorer/Finder searches.
Box Drive does not download the all of the metadata (File name, folder structure, etc.) of your Box content. Instead, it is downloaded on demand and then evicted when it is no longer relevant. This eviction process is not visible to users and it is not easily predictable. This would cause the search results in Explorer/Finder to be inconsistent for users – sometimes they would find a file and other times they may not if the metadata and file were evicted.
We have chosen not to download all of the metadata (and then keep it up to date with changes) as this can result in a large performance, storage and bandwidth tax which is not scalable – especially in environments where users interface with millions of files/folders.
We will continue to improve the Box Drive Search experience as well as add in additional features in the future to help you access your Box content quickly!
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Anonymous
commented
Box Sync previously allowed searching via File Explorer. It also retained the ability to view recently viewed documents in File Explorer. These features are not available with Box Drive. Could you please consider adding this to your planned roadmap?
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Anonymous
commented
Please support searching Box Drive from the Windows File Explorer search bar, or make it easier to get to Box Search from within File Explorer.
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Anonymous
commented
If you're using a mac, you can just use raycast to do that.
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Shauna Shauna
commented
GoogleDrive and Dropbox have no problem with letting us index our OWN files. WHY are you making us look elsewhere when you have an otherwise good product? I was considering coming back (I left last year) but not if this is still broken.
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Anonymous
commented
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.
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Anonymous
commented
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.
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Anonymous
commented
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.
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Anonymous
commented
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.
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Anonymous
commented
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.
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Anonymous
commented
Will start looking for a different solution very soon as Box is not Spotlightable.... on MacOS
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Anonymous
commented
Agreed - this is a total deal breaker. Ability to search all files on a Mac with spotlight is fundamental. Finding a different solution.
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Anonymous
commented
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.
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Anonymous
commented
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.
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Anonymous
commented
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.
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Anonymous
commented
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.
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Anonymous
commented
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.
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Anonymous
commented
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!
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Anja Luesink
commented
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.
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Anonymous
commented
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 -
Anonymous
commented
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.