Advertisement

Dropbox brings its simple mobile search to the desktop

File type filtering has also finally arrived on the web.

Dropbox has given its search function for desktop a much-needed boost by making it more like its mobile app counterpart. Now, when you tap on the little Dropbox icon sitting on Windows' system tray or Mac's menu bar, you'll find a search bar where you can type in your query. Its results will include not just the files synced and saved on your computer, but everything relevant it can find in your account. If you have a Professional or Business account, it can even search for text within documents.

In addition, the cloud service is beefing up search on its website, giving you the power to filter results by file types. Like Google Drive's similar filtering system, you'll be able to narrow down your options by choosing to see just images, documents, PDFs or any of the other seven file types available in your results window. The new feature will also benefit from the service's optimized search function, which Dropbox says is now 65 percent faster than before.

Finally, the company is working on a feature that will let you sort results based on the date they were modified, so you can quickly find the files you accessed most recently. That one's not available yet, but Dropbox promises that it's coming soon.