OneNote search function not working

OneNote 2013 (version 15.x.x.x)

Had the same problem with OneNote 2013 Home and Student installed on my PC (Windows 11 23H2) where search through the notes didn't work anymore giving me as results only the section titles, and in my case the solution was:

1. (just to be cautious make a backup of the dir %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\OneNote)
2. quit OneNote and every other Office tool
3. from Explorer enter the directory %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\OneNote\15.0
4. rename/delete the file OneNoteOfflineCache.onecache and the directory OneNoteOfflineCache_Files
5. open OneNote again (don't worry if you see everything empty! Your notes and sub-notes will be repopulated quickly)

OneNote 2016 (version 16.x.x.x)

1. (just to be cautious make a backup of the dir %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\OneNote)
2. quit OneNote and every other Office tool
3. from Explorer enter the directory %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\OneNote\16.0
4. rename/delete the directory cache
5. open OneNote again (don't worry if you see everything empty! Your notes and sub-notes will be repopulated quickly)

If you have another version of Office and OneNote, try searching for *cache* folders/files in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\OneNote (and its subdirs) anyway, and re-adapt the same solution logic above to your installation.

Good luck!

P.S.

What version of Office/OneNote do I have (referring to the subdirectory path numbers above)?

• 2010 is "14.0"
• 2013 is "15.0"
• 2016 and newer, including recent Microsoft 365 Apps, should be "16.0"

Hi, I had a similar issue and didn't want to try deleting the cache file directly. Instead, I closed out of the Notebook completely (File > Info > Settings > Close). I then used the HP repair function (Installed Apps > Microsoft 365 (Office) > Advanced Options > Repair). When I reopened the Notebook it seems to have re-catalogued the data and now more comprehensively searches my Notebook (at least, pursuant to the test search terms I used that had previously been an issue). I think the fix is more likely attributed to simply closing out of the Notebook entirely rather than the HP "repair" function. Either way, this is a more conservative approach to fixing the issue than attempting to delete the cache file.

Thanks Hexaae!
it worked for me on One Note 2016.

Good that some people like you are here to help instead of Microsoft who too often can't...

This worked for me, ie renaming the cache folder so it makes a new one.

Hi, I had a similar issue and didn't want to try deleting the cache file directly. Instead, I closed out of the Notebook completely (File > Info > Settings > Close). I then used the HP repair function (Installed Apps > Microsoft 365 (Office) > Advanced Options > Repair). When I reopened the Notebook it seems to have re-catalogued the data and now more comprehensively searches my Notebook (at least, pursuant to the test search terms I used that had previously been an issue). I think the fix is more likely attributed to simply closing out of the Notebook entirely rather than the HP "repair" function. Either way, this is a more conservative approach to fixing the issue than attempting to delete the cache file.

Thank you very much. This worked for me for OneNote 2016, and as you suspected, I only had to close and reopen the notebook. So simple!

When I saw the first post from MS about updating, I groaned; I find the 2016 version to be vastly better. So, thanks for the alternative!