Skip to main content
Question

Switched to Box Drive and lost the ability to search in any meaningful way

  • May 22, 2025
  • 6 replies
  • 89 views
Forum|alt.badge.img

In typical disconnected-from-the-actual-business fashion, our IT department just migrated thousands of employees from Box Sync to Box Drive. Now I have lost the ability to effectively search for files among our massive team folders - no file details, no sorting, no wildcards, sometimes contents sometimes not. I have already started complaining to every Director I know in and outside of IT. Just thought I'd post here to see if Box has any recommendations. It is possible (likely) that our IT department hasn't a clue and there is some simple elegant solution that doesn't involve a 2" search window showing 10 files that I don't need every time I do a search.

    6 replies

    Forum|alt.badge.img

    Hi James, 

    Welcome to the Box Community!

    I understands you are having issues with searching files within your Box in your Windows computer.

    I was able to confirm, that this is expected that Windows search tools such as Cortana or File Explorer search do not return Box Drive results.

    Instead of searching within windows, you will need to use Box Drive's search tool to search your Box contents.

    Forum|alt.badge.img

    Problem is that the Box Drive search tool is about as basic as search can possibly get. This product clearly isn't ready for an enterprise environment. My company has made a big mistake.

    Forum|alt.badge.img

    Hi James, 

    Rest assured that we are always striving to improve our product to better serve our users, and appreciate your feedback.

    If you have any product feature request or suggestions, we recommend you post your idea on pulse.box.com for more visibility.

    Our product team reviews all submissions and will consider whether to include feedback in their product roadmap. 

    Forum|alt.badge.img

    France is right... Box has NEVER allowed windows access to its folder for search purposes. This is the one reason why it sucks more than other search solutions. Add OneDrive, GoogleDrive, DropBox... any other camelCase search app to Windows and Windows is able to search it. Add Box and you are stuffed.

    France says that we should suggest this as a "product feature" - the fact that she has no clue that this basic functionality should have been added to box in the first place shows what you're up against James. Yeah, "Welcome to the Box Community!" indeed. I complained and complained about this years ago and Box do not listen nor care. France's response is typical... just pretend it's not an issue.

    Forum|alt.badge.img

    I used web-based box when searching but it doesn't help. I can actually identify a file name on box, copy it (cntrl+c) its title and box wont find it within the first 100 results. What am I supposed to do with that, the search engine is terrible, box, please fix, email me and I will demonstrate. 

    Forum|alt.badge.img

    How are they just barreling through with Box Drive even though it sucks and is in no way comparable to Box Sync? I just bought a 5 year old non-silicon mac because it was less of a pain than having to change to Box Drive. Maybe Box should spend less time sending us scare tactic emails about made up security problems we need to pay more to fix and more time making products that are actually worth paying more for. If they sunset Sync we're out. 

    Terms of ServiceAccessibility statement