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
    2023-05-09T21:55:51+00:00

    I follow the above instructions except the menu item "always keep on this device" is not an option?

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-05-10T14:10:22+00:00

    I found that if you leave everything alone the boxes disappear. Apparently, it is similar to Carbonite which posts yellow circles below files that are destined to be copies. The brown boxes disappear after they end up in the Microsoft Cloud. (I think!) But they have appeared and disappeared twice on my PC.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-05-10T14:19:08+00:00

    It doesn't matter what you do, Microsoft will get your files into their cloud. I've tried uninstalling one drive, disconnecting it, choosing to leave files on pc, one drive always comes back and starts uploading your files once again.

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-05-12T20:24:01+00:00

    Thank you for your time and your help. However, "Always keep on this device" did not appear in the menu. Now what?

    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?

    0 comments