What are these brown box icons in left bottom corner of my files??

Anonymous
2022-03-07T21:29:56+00:00

Does anyone know where these small brown box icons came from and what they mean?? I suddenly have these little brown icons (looks like a small file box) on most of my files, Word, pdf, photos, etc. I've googled the daylights out of this and apparently lots of folks have the same question but no one has an answer. I hasn't affected my ability to open files but it's really annoying! (see pic below) Does it have something to do with my upgrade to Windows 11?

Thanks!

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Performance and system failures

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Anonymous
2022-04-23T00:35:08+00:00

Had this exact same issue today. The resolution was quick no reinstall. I'm on Win11, so perhaps that was a plus in this scenario. Here's the fix that worked for me:

  1. Open windows explorer <windows-key + e>
  2. If you're using OneDrive you should see something like "OneDrive - Personal" within the left-hand pane. If so, Right-Click to access the context-menu.
  3. You should see the menu-item: "Always keep on this device", select this.
  4. Recheck your desktop; no more brown boxes, yay!

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  1. Anonymous
    2025-02-19T15:22:31+00:00

    My employer pushed out Win 11 a couple of months ago or so, and the the little brown marks just appeared today. The really weird thing is that they appear on desktop shortcuts, replacing the old arrow for shortcuts. Obviously, the shortcuts themselves are not stored on OneDrive. The brown boxes appear on shortcuts that point to local files, to local folders, and even URLs. They're just plastered all over my desktop, on almost (but not quite) everything. What the heck is going on?

    I'm less concerned about removing them than with understanding them, though getting rid of them would probably be nice, and I'll try the fixes suggested here.

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  2. Anonymous
    2025-02-16T14:57:26+00:00

    IT WORKED THANK YOU

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  3. Anonymous
    2025-01-29T20:55:17+00:00

    I have this same issue but I don't use onedrive.

    Thoughts?

    Thanks for any help!

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  4. Anonymous
    2025-01-09T19:39:24+00:00

    I agree. None of the suggested cures work. So what is MS doing about it ?

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