Last month, Microsoft confirmed that searching on OneDrive was a mess as it would not work when a user tried looking for a file using OneDrive's Search function. Essentially, searching would return blanks or the files simply would not show up, even if you were sure such a file existed.
Describing the issue the company stated, "Some OneDrive personal account users may notice that search results appear blank or don’t return files they know exist. While the files are still present and accessible, they don’t appear in search results." The issue was affecting Windows, Mac, Android, as well as OneDrive web, so basically everyone.
What made the problem worse is that no workaround for the bug was provided, something which is typically done by the company in case of many other bugs. So if you wanted to find some particular files urgently, you were out of luck.
Thankfully, after about a week and a half, today, Microsoft says that it has fixed the issue thus has closed it. However, the company understands that such a widespread bug can still persist for many users. As such, it has shared a tip for all the platforms in case such users are still experiencing search-related problems. The company writes under the entry titled "Search results appear blank or don’t return files known to exist":
Search should work as normal now.
If you still experience issues, please refresh your browser or turn your mobile device off & back on again.
Thus, Microsoft has recommended users to try the classic troubleshooting trick that is a universal favorite of tech support teams. However, there is method to the madness and actual reasons why this works. A restart, which is technically a power cycle, helps flush out memory leaks, among other issues, that may have accumulated and the OS reloads a known good configuration. It can also help in the case of overheating to cool the hardware down momentarily.
Unfortunately, Microsoft does not really provide any other info regarding the new version that fixes the issue. The OneDrive release notes page is yet to be updated as the last version there is dated June 23, 2025. You can find the support article for the issue here on Microsoft's official website.
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