Windows 11 - File Explorer - Search Contents fails

Brass Contributor

Yesterday I updated my 3 day old laptop to Windows 11.  Today I moved some files into the My Documents folder, then I went to the upper right corner of File Explorer and entered the word I wanted to find in the files. The search options included file contents, The search returned no results.

 

The same search on my old laptop, which uses Windows 10, found numerous matches.

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Also experiencing the same issue, can search file names but not by contents, suspect it was tied to the index. I tried the following;
- Rebuild the Index
- Remove and re-add the folder to indexing via Indexing Options

As a work around; If I edit the folder search settings and enable the option: Don't use the index when searching in the file folders for system files (searches may take longer) and search it works, but its much slower as expected.
I have exactly the same problem. Windows 10 finds the file but Windows 11 does not.
Hi, same problem here. Isn't it a solution yet?

Same problem here! Any solutions yet? @DBP-User 

Same issue, I upgraded to Windows 11 on 2 home computers which I use often to search for content in a WORD file, looking for a city name or job name.  Had no issues for years.  After upgrading both computers to Windows 11 the search no longer works in File Explorer or in WORD.  I have repeatedly confirmed "search content" is checked, I have rebooted, I have checked for and installed Windows updates, I have rebuilt my index on both systems, I have checked for errors on Search, etc.  Nothing works.  I am ready to downgrade back to Windows 10 if I can't figure this out this week.  Does anyone have any useful info, my google searches turn up a bunch of non-starters.

Same issue here. I have some PDF in my Documents folder. If I search for one of these file by name, no result is returned.
I noted a strange behavior: if I make a copy of one of these file and search for that copy name, then windows explorer find it! The file are identical also security and other attributes. I already rebuilt search index. Any idea?

@DBP-User am facing the same issue after updating to Windows 11. Somehow PDF files is being searched and being indexed but I have seen Excel and Word files missing from any and all indexed searches. It used to work like a breeze in Windows 10.

 

Kindly let us know if a solution is found.

I have the same issue for all files.

@JHStebbins 

In my case I have problem with doc files only but docx searching content works.

@DBP-User  I was having a similar issue with several new computers, all with windows 11 installed. They would not return search results when searching content within our excel files. I tried all the usual tricks like rebuilding the index (Multiple times) and reparing search etc.

 

Nothing worked until I realised that most of the excel files being searched were the old format .xls. I upgraded them all to .xlsx and now search is reading the contents again no problem and returning the correct search results. Might be worth trying on a couple of your files to test? I upgraded around 5000 files to .xlsx and all is good again.

 

Seems very strange that windows search doesn't seem able to read the contents of .xls files.

Hi, same problem here. Isn't it a solution yet?

@SteveMC181 5000 files are you manually converted or maybe do you have any files series solutions ?

I used an addin to excel called KUTools, worked great to do a big batch conversion. Took about 4 hours to do all 5000+ files. Only issue as the files were on a network drive, was that it reset all the modified dates. If it’s a local drive you can set it to not change this date.
But I have doc files to need convert to docx

I’ve no idea if this will work for doc files, I didn’t convert any. Have you tried converting a few files manually and then seeing if the search function finds them?

Step by step for KUTools for word is here. https://www.extendoffice.com/documents/word/5601-word-batch-convert-doc-to-docx.html#a2

I have the same problem with Windows 11. It won't search contents of XLS, DOC or PDF files. It will search in DOCX and XLSX files. I've done all the suggested fixes including rebuilding the Index twice.

Anyone know if Microsoft has acknowledged this bug and committed to a fix?

Thanks.

Same issue here. In my case, it does not find content in docx either.