Search for Box Drive content from Explorer/Finder Search
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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
Beyond stupid. We lost days of work since we did not know where files were stored and when searched for them in macOS we could not find them. Thought they were lost but it was only Box that did not allow to find them!
I assume this is also why we see the sharing violation issue popping up quite a lot lately? Excel can't index the box folder and store temporary files properly.
My department is switching back to dropbox. This is just crazy.
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Anonymous commented
Just switched from Box Sync to Box Drive. Now Search does not work. Online web search is lame and I am often offline. I find out it is a design decision. This is pretty near a deal breaker for me. I am going to explore OneDrive now. I bet it works. What a shame for your team.
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Daniel Melter commented
Breathtakingly silly not so support SPOTLIGHT search. Internet = Search, is it not?
The engineers must see hurdles they cannot overcome.
At least for Offline files I think it's a must. -
Anonymous commented
I just "upgraded" from Box sync to Box drive, but encountered the issues that have been commented on here relating to being unable to use OS native search. Being very dependent on needing to quickly search for and find files using multiple search fields, within specific folders , dates, and other advanced fields, I'll be switching back to sync ASAP. At first I thought it was an issue driven by the OS (Microsoft 10 etc), but shocked to learn it was Box.
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Anonymous commented
We were absolutely bamboozled that native search on the Mac is not supported by Box.
Like…what!?! I have to be connected to the internet just to search even local files???In addition, the ability to search natively is key when you have an idea of where something is and want search a particular folder. It's also key for browsing a search visually.
Use case:
1. I know an image exists somewhere below a given parent "Images" folder, but I don't know what the name is
2. In Finder I can do a Spotlight search within the parent folder for 'images' that will search all subfolders at that level
3. I can then put the results into icon view, sort by whatever criteria I choose, scale the thumbnails up, put the window into fullscreen view and quickly find the image I'm looking for by scanning them visually.This is not possible with Box's search, whether via the Box Drive search modal or on the website
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Anonymous commented
It is just ridiculous that this fundamental feature has been made impossible during migration from box drive to box sync. I am really considering to exclude box from my company since this is such a productivity issue!
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Anonymous commented
Make Box Drive Searchable in Windows Explorer
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Paying Enterprise Customer commented
Firstly, removing a key feature in next rev software is not cool! You have had two years to work on this. The above explanation about metadata does not make sense now that we have 'Make Available Offline' option. No reason why Spotlight cannot index them. This is a top10 requested feature and you should be constantly 'Researching'. If not, you are saying you don't care about customers needs. I would definitely not recommend Box to my friends.
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Anonymous commented
Taking this away (vs how it worked in BoxSynch) is causing me hours of work each month for me and others in ,y company. In Synch, we could search on a data term (such as a certain reference number) and would see all files and folders related to that search term. Now, there is absolutely nothing. If I search directly within BOX, I only get Files and Folders, but no documents. This most important aspect of the search was being able to see at a glance which folders, files and documents such as invoices that contained the reference number. What answered questions within seconds is now causing a great deal of manual research via opening individual documents, one by one. Thanks for the horrible enhancement with BOX DRIVE. It is useless.
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Anonymous commented
If you do not want to integrate the system searches and Box Drive search, please implement the following improvements to Box Drive search.
- Open Box Drive search in a window, not in a popup that disappears when I click away.
- Allow me to search within a specific subfolder of Box Drive. Maybe add an item to the context menu in Windows Explorer/Finder?
- Index files for which I have enabled offline access, since they are stored on my local machine. -
Anonymous commented
I can echo the same sentiments shared here. The current Box Drive search is useless. We need a way to search for strings within the files and see previews of those files as Windows search provides. This is a core need for our business to be able to quickly search back through daily reports.
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Anonymous commented
It is quite unpleasant that a so fantastic tool like spotlight does not work with the fox folders when using BOX. Spotlight is simply the best index and search tool. Spotlight not only search over the name of file, or kind of file but also over the content of the file and that helps profoundly when you are searching over files. We miss Box sync.
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Anonymous commented
YES! This is such a frustrating situation. I use Spotlight and Alfred for all my searches. Having to use the Box search feature is a huge headache.
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Anonymous commented
Would love to see this.
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Anonymous commented
Yes, same for PC.
Having to use ctrl+shift+alt+B is a stretcher and functionally doesn't work within file browsers, also it is substantially slower than Listary.
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Anonymous commented
How is this not a feature yet?
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Anonymous commented
Box Drive should supply its file index in to Mac OS X Spotlight so that Spotlight, and other application launchers like Alfred, can access the files.
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Anonymous commented
The search function in the box app is horrible, I tried the box app search and the web search and it did not find the right document (was searching for the content).
PLEASE I BEG YOU, ENABLE SPOTLIGHT SEARCH FOR OFFLINE FILES OR PROVIDE A PROPER SEARCH FUNCTION WITH BOX!!!!
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Anonymous commented
However files are stored, we need a robust search! The current box drive search is not adequate.
If files are made available offline, are they then searchable with windows explorer?
Is the current version of X1 Search (X1 Discovery, Inc.) compatible with box drive?
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Anonymous commented
Seriously, worst decision ever made by the box team to implement the sync as junction point.