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

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
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!

Was this answer helpful?

1100+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments

204 additional answers

Sort by: Oldest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2022-11-27T02:16:53+00:00

    This is happening to me too and the remedy you suggested does not work. I can't open these files anymore either. Please tell me what that box is there for and what it means. Thank you.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2022-11-27T03:47:12+00:00

    I have windows 11 so that might be why I do and you don’t. Sorry :/

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2022-11-27T13:27:47+00:00

    Hi, I was given the ole, "It's a Microsoft issue from Dropbox, and it's a Dropbox issue from Microsoft One Drive (this is actually the ultimate culprit, but their support was useless), and it's an ASUS storage problem from Microsoft Word support 😡. Two wasted days and stress.

    I finally somehow got through to Microsoft Windows support, who, after many hours realized it had to do with Microsoft One Drive archiving the files, screwing up their ability to sync with Dropbox or open correctly. I use Dropbox and everything opened and worked fine from my the Dropbox website, but the files were no longer being synced there.😫 and I couldn't work with them from my desktop.

    She finally clicked on every folder and every subfolder, I have hundreds, clicked the Dropbox icon, and selected view offline. Then she realized she could click on the main folders and do it for all subfolders.

    That worked. But she also did some other stuff that I couldn't follow to get them to sync with Dropbox again.

    In my opinion, an intentional ploy by Microsoft to get you to pay for Windows Operating support (which she said she would wave because I was so hopping mad at this point) and to make you think One Drive is better than the other cloud storage options.

    Microsoft is not what it once was, but what accessible alternatives do we have?

    Good luck.

    Was this answer helpful?

    2 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2022-11-29T11:11:16+00:00

    A brown box over your Windows Desktop icons can be caused by an issue with Windows Explorer.

    Open task manager, on the process tab right click 'Windows Explorer' and select restart

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments