Windows 11 Search Won't Find .odt Files in Certain Folders

Ananiujitha said:

Neither the Start Menu search nor the File Explorer search are finding the .odt files in certain folders.

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You're lucky it's finding anything at all. Windows Search has been unreliable for a long time.

3rd party options are much more successful ...
UltraSearch (my preferred option 1)
Agent Ransack (my preferred option 2)
Everything

UltraSearch and Agent Ransack xlnt for content search as well. Freeware versions suffice

EDIT
On rare occasions, I do resort to using both if one is not successful

Among other things, I use the computer for research and writing.

I take a lot of notes, and I need to be able to search my own notes. I sometimes use .txt instead, but it's much harder to navigate in .txt files, and it's impossible to include footnotes in them. I used to use .doc, but the .doc format is inconsistent, and it's hard to predict whether .doc files will open, whether they will have gibberish at each end, and whether they will crash while working on them.

P.S. I tried *Everything*. Pointed it to a folder, searched, set it to search search, let it run for a couple hours, it still missed most of the relevant files.

I've seen two mentions of Agent Ransack...

Give that a shot.

Ananiujitha said:

P.S. I tried *Everything*. Pointed it to a folder, searched, let it run for a couple hours, it still hadn't found the relvant results.

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Not a big fan of Everything, despite its obvious popularity in multiple forums. Bit hard to manage, not very intuitive (altho I do have a short attention span .. I do like to be able to click, and things just work )

Banjoman301 said:

Alternative: If Windows Search remains unreliable with OpenDocument formats, users on Reddit recommend third-party tools like DocFetcher or Agent Ransack for fast content searching. [1]

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I just tried the free version of Agent Ransack.

Did a content search on a group of .odt files stored on two different attached drives.

It found the content in every file I expected to see.

Sometimes it takes more than one tool to get the job done.

So to reiterate the problems, and solutions so far:

1. Windows wasn't indexing .odt and other OpenDocument files. There are 2 different LibreOffice bug reports regarding this, but it seems to be a Windows problem, not a LibreOffice problem. 100879 – Indexing for Windows Search not working on Win10 x64 with LibreOffice x64 130320 – LibO 6: Windows 10 content indexing does not work Reinstalling the right search index filters and *then* reindexing selected folders fixed this. Repairing and/or reinstalling LibreOffice doesn't always fix this. I did this several times with varying success. Uninstalling and then reinstalling Libreoffice should fix this.

2. Windows sometimes reinstalls Microsoft's filters for the OpenDocument formats over the LibreOffice filters for them. Windows does this during updates, and probably during repairs/reinstalls, and apparently other times. Reverted file associations might be a warning sign for reverted filters. I can reinstall the right filters, but it would be easier to keep them without having to periodically reinstall them.

3. I have 2 large disks, and I don't have a high-end processor, so Windows takes a long time to search without an index, or to create a new index. I haven't done every folder, but the indexer doesn't stop on any particular folder or file type, it just takes a long time; the indexer does stop if I change index settings when it's indexing.

3a. I might be able to use another search solution, at least some of the time. But I think I need to index the relevant folders on each disk, not rely on fresh searches without an index. It's hard to find out what other options are safe *and* index file contents.

3b. If I find another search solution, then I might not need to have Windows index the other disk, and/or I might not need to have it index file contents.

Ananiujitha said:

If I find another search solution, then I might not need to have Windows index the other disk, and/or I might not need to have it index file contents.

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I do not have indexing enabled on any drives, and Agent Ransack worked well in my test.

Agent Ransack, like Everything, bypasses Windows indexing regardless.

I don't think you will get a Windows fix for a LibreOffice filter issue...

It's LibreOffice's job to make sure their stuff works (LibreOffice Windows Search MSI Extension...available for download on the LibreOffice site) with Windows, not the other way around.

If you haven't installed that, give it a try, othewise it's probably time to consider other content search options.

Best of luck.

Windows keeps replacing the Document Foundation's ifilter for .odt files (which works) with Microsoft's ifilter (which doesn't).

I tried creating a couple of odt files and can find them by content without issue - that's on Win 10, which I happened to be using. I can try Win 11 another time. I've also checked that on Win 11. Fine.

But I don't have MS Offics installed as I said before.... that might make some difference I can't check, although as MS Office probably doesn't handle odt files, it shouldn't.

Windows keeps replacing the Document Foundation's ifilter for .odt files (which works) with Microsoft's ifilter (which doesn't).

Click to expand...

That seems to be your key issue... and is probably Office, not Windows that's doing that given the above.


I updated Libre Office- and am now horrified at how slow and unresponsive it is - e.g. document load times.

Windows search is reliable as far as I'm concerned, but takes some understanding at times. It's not a great tool for the casual user.
One thing I found is that setting up which folders are to be indexed is key.

I have some pdfs about understanding Windows search by HowtoGeek, and the syntax is largely but not wholly documented here:

So file bug reports with Microsoft and LibreOffice...and until, or even if it ever gets addressed, your still in the same boat.

I'd want to just get work done, with whatever tool works the best for my use cases.

If you want to keep fighting it day in and day out, you do you.

Ok, here's a probable solution:





... more follows... so just do the same search for yourself.

stop ms office replacing Libre Offices ifilter for odt files

Clearly this is a known issue.