How to search your Dropbox files

You can search for the following in your Dropbox account: 

• File name
• People who have collaborated on the file
• Tags
• File contents (Dropbox Plus, Family, Professional, Standard, Advanced, and Enterprise customers only)
• Image contents (Dropbox Family, Professional, Standard, Advanced, and Enterprise customers only)
• Image properties (such as resolution, date, keywords, copyrights, and other EXIF and IPTC fields)
• OCR (Optical character recognition) - text within images (Dropbox Professional, Standard, Advanced, and Enterprise customers only)

How to search your Dropbox files

On dropbox.com

To search your files on dropbox.com:

1. Sign in to dropbox.com.
2. Click the search bar at the top.
3. Start typing what you’d like to search for. Search results will appear as you type. You can either click one of those results or press the enter/return key on your keyboard to see all results.

In the Dropbox desktop app

To search your files in the Dropbox desktop app:

1. Click the Dropbox icon in your taskbar (Windows) or menu bar (Mac).
2. Click the search icon (magnifying glass) at the top.
3. In the search bar that appears, start typing what you’d like to search for. Search results will appear as you type. 

Notes:

• The desktop app will display up to 20 search results. To see all results, click View on dropbox.com in the upper-right. This will automatically open the full search results on dropbox.com.
• If you open a file or folder from your search results that’s not locally synced, it will open on dropbox.com instead of your Dropbox folder in File Explorer/Finder.

On the Dropbox mobile app

To search your files on the Dropbox mobile app:

1. Open the Dropbox mobile app.
2. Tap Search all Dropbox at the top.
3. Type what you’d like to search for.
4. Tap Search or wait for the results.

How to filter your search results

You can filter your search results on dropbox.com by folder and content type.

• To limit search results to a specific folder, click Folder above the search results, navigate to the folder you’d like to filter by, and click Select.
• To filter by a specific type of content, click Type above the search results and click the checkbox next to the type(s) of content you’d like to filter by.
• To filter by image properties, click Image properties above the search results and use the dropdown options below Date taken and Dimensions to select the image properties you’d like to filter by.
• To filter by a certain time period, click Last modified above the search results to select from the last 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days, 90 days, 12 months, or a custom time period.
• To filter by a person, click People above the search results and select from your top collaborators or start typing the person's name in the search bar.

Using advanced search operators

You can use advanced search operators to help refine your search.

Note: Searches may return inaccurate results for contents of a file, certain images, and Paper docs if you're using the old release of Dropbox Paper.

You can use the following advanced search operators: