How to make "search tab" appears on Windows Explorer/Windows 10 HOME?

My Windows 10 Home Version 21H2. Build 19044.1466

Hi.

I've been trying a few things that I found on the internet to no avail.
I have installed Policy Plus but I couldnt (don't know how to) find anything which allows me to enable the search tab.

What should I do?

dalchina said:

Hi, thank MS for this difficulty. The last build in which search worked fully was 1903.
I've deliberately kept one PC on that build for this reason.

After that, MS
a. messed it up badly then
b. changed it so that, as you note, clicking in the box doesn't offer the Search tab.
They also removed the useful highlighting of correct search syntax in blue - presumably in an effort to make this even harder to use, expecially as the syntax is incompletely documented.

The Search tab only appears AFTER you have performed a search.

Now, MS is a computer company... but how logical is that, Mr Spock?

This is (somewhat) well-known and has been written about.

A simple Google search for e.g.
missing search tab in file explorer
will quite quickly give you this:

Fix: Missing Search Tab 'File Explorer (Windows 10 - 1909)' - Appuals.com

This includes an attempt at an apologia for MS's decision. I.e. by design, not accident, alas.

All I wanted was to find all empty folders in a drive and delete them at once, but neither solutions worked.
I'll have to delete them manually.

But thank you very much for your fast reply and the link.
Much appreciated.

dalchina said:

Curious, you didn't ask about this in your first post to which I gave a very precise reply:

Well, I also wanted to understand the nature of this issue thoroughly as well.

dalchina said:

The difficulty you have there with Windows native features is that, as has been discussed many times, file explorer does not evaluate the size of folders.

You would need to use a 3rd party tool for that.

Or you could use the command prompt as shown in the third part of this:
How to delete empty folders in Windows 10

(I don't believe the first part about finding empty folders).

Great, the command prompt should do.

Thanks a lot.

dalchina said:

Here's how to make the search tab appear when you click in the search box: easy way-


- use this free tweaker with full explanation.

Search results again appear 'as you type'.

I note elsewhere ztruker posted the registry key changes for this too.

Thanks for getting back to me!That seems like a wonderful tool.

Much appreciated @dalchina