If you have the Dropbox access program installed on your Windows computer, a copy of each file and folder on your Dropbox account will be inside a special “Dropbox folder” that is created on your computer. This means that you can search for files and folders inside your Dropbox account from your computer’s desktop, just like you would search for any other file, folder, or program on your computer.
You can also search for files and folders inside your Dropbox account from the Dropbox website. Our Searching Dropbox.com tutorial will show you how.
Searching in Drobox for Windows
Searching for all files and folders, including Dropbox folder
To search for files on Dropbox from among all of your computer’s files, just press the Start button to open your Start Menu, click inside the box labelled “Search Programs and Files”, and type in the name of the file or folder you are looking for. It should show up in the list that appears. Click a file to open it using its affiliated program, or click a folder to open it and see the files inside.
Searching for files and folders in Dropbox folder only
If you only want to search among files that are on your Dropbox account (as opposed to on your whole computer), the first thing to do is find and open the “Dropbox folder” on your computer. This can be done by doing a regular search for where it is on your computer (like as described above), or by clicking the Open Dropbox Folder button in the Dropbox program interface.
Once you have your “Dropbox” folder open, you can click in the bar that says “Search Dropbox” and start typing in the name of a file or folder that you want to look for on your Dropbox account.
As you type, Windows will show you results based on how closely your search terms match the name of the file or folder, certain text within the file, or who created the file. Your search terms will be highlighted on the appropriate part of the file.
You can also click on one of the options below “Add A Search Filter” to refine your search based on when a file or folder was last changed, or how much memory space the file takes up.
Double-click on a search result to open that file or folder.
That’s all there is to searching for files on your Dropbox account through the Dropbox folder on your Windows computer!
If you’re finding this a little too complicated, try searching for your files and folders on the Dropbox website instead. You can learn how in our Searching Dropbox.com tutorial (here).
