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
    2022-12-05T18:00:21+00:00

    There is no "always keep on this device" when I right click one-drive personal.

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-12-13T14:24:58+00:00

    So are any of the previous replies THE answer / solution to this problem? If so, none of them have been marked as THE answer, so this is apparently an unanswered / unsolved string?

    Other people on other language forums are referencing this string, but it is unclear which post is THE answer.

    David

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-12-13T14:35:55+00:00

    DBoydNL

    The answer is

    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

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-12-13T15:16:45+00:00

    Okay, thanks for that. Now can you or somebody please mark that as THE answer so it shows up at the top of the string?

    David

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