The problem is still happening in InDesign 2025 (20.1 x64 Windows):
"Selection" is not present as a choice in the dropdown even though there is a selection in the text when opening the Find and Replace window.
I ran a script to reset the find preferences, but that did not help.

I changed the selection of "Custom" in the upper dropdown box, to one of the saved searches. It turns out it switched to a Grep search, and in that list the "selection" choice was present. So in that way I could perform a find / change on "selection" without restarting InDesign. I found nothing to explain the actual problem.

This needs to be addressed by Adobe, since its an annoying little problem, and a very old one.

The search popup options are not available, I can only search/replace in a document or all documents. Other options (story, selection) are simply not available – even if I have a cursor in a story or selected word. This happens most of the time I try to perform search/replace in InDesign CC2024.

It is a very annoying bug making my work less effective. Please fix it.

This issue has been reported but incorrectly marked by @ravi as CLOSED when it has not been resolved at all!
https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesignbugs/suggestions/31237798-find-change-search-popup-not-all-options-show

Restarting InDesign or reseting preferences helps only termporarily. The problems will occur again and again.

I have been struggling with this issue for a long time.
Originally the pull down should have 5 items. Only two items that I never use are displayed.

It is very frustrating that I have not been able to find a way to reproduce this problem for several years.

Still happening in ID 2023 (18.0) – please, please, please Adobe, address this very irritating bug!
It's depressing to see that so many of the bug reports I've voted for either are unanswered or that the last response from Adobe was years ago.

I am currently having this issue right now! Was the bug never fixed? This issue was brought up in 2017 and never addressed.... is it me or are all the programs more glitchy than previous years?

Still happening as of 09-26-2022. Using find/change I can only select 'Document'. Only fix is to quit and restart indesign. Maddening

Still happening in 2022. I have a book with like 20 documents open; restarting InDesign every time this bug occurs is killing me.

I have the same issue. This is incredibly infuriating, especially when working with tables.

This is still happening in the latest version of Indesign — v17.0.1 / 2022.
Restarting works for one find/change, then back to the same issue.
Trashing preferences also only works one time.
Please fix this up ASAP – this is a huge time waster when working on a project such as a book.
Seems it has been happening for the last 5–6 years now. Please fix this Adobe.

This is still happening in the latest version of Indesign — v17.0.1 / 2022.
Restarting works for one find/change, then back to the same issue.
Trashing preferences also only works one time.
Please fix this up ASAP – this is a huge time waster when working on a project such as a book.
Seems it has been happening for the last 5–6 years now. Please fix this Adobe.

Yes! This is happening to me too! And it's 2021!

… and it is still happening in CC 2020 (15.0.1.209).
Adobe disappoints – again – they seem more focused on adding new functions than fixing long-present problems like this one. It's a shame they don't see that improving stability and fixing bugs is what professionals want the most.

Affinity Publisher is looking more and more like an option – for a fraction of the cost.

Colleen, thank you for reporting this bug. It is extremely inconvenient losing access to Find in Story, and I hope this will be addressed soon!

Quitting and relaunching InDesign CC 2018 is the only way to restore the search options. This was also happening in CC 2017.

Many times, I have gone to the Find/Change dialog box and not seen any options in the Search popup other than "All Documents or "Document."

"Story," "End of Story," etc. are missing.