How To Fix Discord Search Not Working on Desktop & Mobile
Reviewed by Huzaifa Haroon- Discord offers two main search tools: the Quick Switcher for navigating channels, servers, and user profiles, and the search bar for detailed message searches within specific channels or servers.
- Problems with Discord's search functionality can often be addressed by checking server status, restarting the app, ensuring a solid internet connection, disabling streamer mode, or clearing the cache.
- To resolve issues with Discord's search, users might need to check for updates, restart their app, verify their internet connection, disable specific settings like streamer mode, or clear stored cache.
If you regularly use Discord, you should know how hard it is to find particular messages, channels, people, and other content on servers with a lot of activity. To make navigating around Discord much snappier, Discord added a built-in search bar that allows users to find anything or anyone with a few simple commands.
Considering how useful the feature is, it’s not easy to find an alternative around it when Discord search doesn’t work. To help you with that, we have come up with 5 steps to fix Discord Search not working so that you can have full control over your Discord.
Table of Contents
Understanding Discord Search Features
When it comes to searching on Discord, a lot of people don’t know this but you have two different search bars that can be used on different occasions. First, you have the search bar on the top-left corner of the app which is called the Quick Switcher and the other one is just a good old search bar. So what’s the difference?
1. Quick Switcher
The Quick Switcher tool allows you to move between different channels, servers, and direct messages within the Discord app. You can switch between voice channels in one server to text channels in others, or even find members across different servers. Instead of navigating manually, you can use Quick Switcher to find where you need to go.
To open up the Quick Switcher bar, simply click on it or hit CTRL+K or ⌘+K. Once the menu is open, you can use the @user, #channel, *server, or !voice channel commands to head to wherever you want. As you type, Discord automatically adjusts the result to help you find your destination in no time.
READ MORE: How to Fix Discord Voice Chat not Working ➜
2. Search Bar
While Quick Switcher allows you to go anywhere within the Discord app, the search bar is limited to whatever specific server or chat you are on. Similar to the Quick Switcher, this search bar also has a few unique tools and filters to help you find what you need in private or large community-wide servers. With this search bar, you can refer to anything sent to your server no matter how old it is.
You can find this search bar on a server’s right side or use the Ctrl + F or ⌘ + F combinations. From here, you’ll be presented with many search options such as; From, Mentions, Has, Before, During, After, In, and Pinned. Once you have narrowed your search query, you can select them based on recency or relevancy and the “Jump” button will blast off you there.
How to Fix Discord Search Not Working
Now that you completely understand the two different Discord search features and their purpose, let’s look at how to fix them. Whether it’s the Quicker Switcher or the Search bar, these fixes aren’t specific to any and will help you fix both of these in a breeze.
1. Check if Discord is Down
Before getting yourself all worked up, start by checking the status of Discord servers to make sure the problem you are facing isn’t a widespread concern. While server issues mostly cause login-related issues, they can sometimes also cause specific services and features to not function properly. To review the status of the servers, you can visit the Discord Status website to find out if other people are facing similar issues.
In that case, the only fix you have is to wait for either the servers to get fixed or for the Discord team to resolve the broken search bar.
READ MORE: How To Turn Off Discord Overlay in Games? [2024 Update] ➜
2. Restart the Discord App
Issues like Discord search not working are often simply random bugs within the app that can be fixed through a simple app restart. Bugs are unexpected issues within the software and can cause minor issues like glitches to major ones like affecting the functionality. Restarting the Discord app means entirely closing it even from the background and launching it back again.
For those of you using the Desktop app, you’ll need to either close Discord from the system tray on Windows or remove it using the Force Quit (option+⌘+esc) window on Mac. On the other hand, mobile users can simply remove it from the background running apps.
READ MORE: How to Fix Discord Push to Talk Not Working? ➜
3. Ensure You Have a Solid Internet Connection
To use services like Discord you need to have a fast and stable Internet connection. An unstable connection can cause interruptions and slow load times when using the Discord app. Hence, ensure your internet speed is at least around 2-3 Mbps without frequent disconnections as these can also cause search functions to not find any results.
You can either simply use YouTube or other apps that require a solid connection and see how well they perform or for more advanced results, you can also run Internet speed tests. If you Internet is the problem here, try switching to mobile data to see if there’s a change in speed and stability.
READ MORE: How to Fix Temporary Network Error on Discord? [2024]
4. Disable Discord Streamer Mode
Discord Streamer mode is like a “safety mode” that is designed to help streamers on platforms like Twitch, YouTube, or others protect their personal information on Discord when streaming. When activated, it hides certain sensitive information from the stream, such as personal notifications, direct messages, and server invites, preventing them from being accidentally displayed on the stream.
However, as the streamer mode interferes with your Discord content it can cause search bars not to display results properly or in worst cases not even work.
Here’s how to disable the Discord Streamer mode:
- Open up the Discord app and click on the gear icon at the bottom left side of your screen next to your profile.
Click on the gear icon - Once you are in the Settings section, scroll down until you find “Streamer Mode” from the sidebar.
Scroll down to Streamer mode - Finally, toggle off the button next to “Streamer Mode activate“.
Toggle off the button next to it
5. Clear Discord Cache
Like any other application or program, Discord also stores Cache Data on your device, including messages, images, emojis, user profiles, server settings, and more. While cache data can greatly improve performance and reduce load times over time it gets corrupted. Hence, to avoid issues and bugs, clearing cache data over time is recommended.
READ MORE: How to Clear Windows Update Cache in 7 Steps [2024] ➜
↪ Discord Desktop
When Discord caches data, it stores copies of this information locally on your device’s storage, typically in temporary folders. Before jumping in, make sure that Discord is not running in the background. From there, follow these steps:
- Press Windows + R to open up the Run program. From here, type in appdata and hit Enter.
Type in “appdata” in the box - This will open up the Windows File Explorer where you’ll need to click on the Roaming folder.
Click on Roaming - Here, find the “discord” folder and right-click on it. Finally, click on the Delete button and you are good to go.
Click on Delete
For those of you using Discord on Mac, open up the Finder Window and press “⇧+⌘+G“. Enter the “~/Library/Application Support/discord/” command into the search box. This will bring you to the folder that contains all your Discord’s cached data. Now select all the cache files by pressing “⌘+A” and delete them by pressing “⌘+Delete“.
READ MORE: How to Fix Discord Member List Not Showing Issue? ➜
↪ Discord Mobile
Similar to its Desktop counterpart, Discord also stores cache on mobile devices which can be cleared by following these quick and easy steps:
- Press and hold the Discord app until a menu pops up. From here, tap on the ⓘ icon to open up the App info.
Head over to App Info - Next, click on the Storage tab, and here tap on Clear cache.
Storage > Clear Cache
6. Update or Reinstall the Discord App
If the Discord search is still not working even after trying basic to complex troubleshooting, then your last two options are updating the app or reinstalling it. If you are Windows, Discord automatically installs pending updates whenever you launch it. On mobile, you can check Playstore or Appstore to see if there’s an option to update the app.
In case the app is already updated, try deleting the app and installing it back again. Make sure you remember your login details to save yourself from another problem.
READ MORE: (8 Fixes) Discord Update Failed Infinite Retrying loop ➜
Find Your Way Around Discord
Search features like Quick Switcher and server-specific search bars allow you to find old messages or switch to different places in a flash. With the above-mentioned fixes, we hope you’ll be able to solve your Discord search not working issue and get back to enjoying your Discord sessions.
FAQs
The Force Quit window on a Mac is typically used when an application becomes unresponsive or frozen. It allows users to forcefully quit an application for troubleshooting purposes or for freeing up system resources. Additionally, the Force Quit window provides information about the status of each application and allows users to choose which ones to close.
Internet speed tests are generally accurate for measuring current speeds but can be influenced by factors like server location, network congestion, and local conditions. However, they provide a useful estimate and are often pretty close to your true speeds.
Without caching, applications would suffer from slower performance, increased resource usage, and higher latency as they repeatedly fetch data from the original source. Offline functionality would be limited, and server loads would escalate, resulting in a poorer user experience overall.
Reviewed by Huzaifa Haroon
