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
    2024-02-02T21:11:19+00:00

    I have uninstalled every darn thing related to Onedrive, in the registry, the compulsory administrator account and all.... and yes this demon still appears.

    Does not anyone suffer at work because getting thee things resolved just steal your time unkowingly?

    What started as a 10 minute allocated attempt took a day or more, and you start forgetting your errands earlier and have to spend night hours catching up on them?

    TELL MICROSOFT TO STOP: My computer, the space in it, and what I do with it is MY PROPERTY. Anyone else touching any of it is trespassing. If they cannot come up with a perfectly ready to sell product, then they should either NOT SELL IT and definitely not forced people to upgrade to the new product, and they should consider paying people back for all the trouble. THERE IS NO SUCH TING AS ACCEPTING A PRODUCT IN THE MAKING. PERIOD, PERIOD PERIOD!

    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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  2. Anonymous
    2024-02-03T14:19:14+00:00

    I was having the same problem (though my computer would not open the files from File Explorer) and I realized I did not actually have the OneDrive app downloaded on my computer, even though I could see the OneDrive files in my File Explorer (where the brown boxes were). Once I downloaded the OneDrive app on my computer all those brown boxes went away!

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-02-06T08:48:32+00:00

    I just refreshed and it went away, I was confused too :)

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    1 person found this answer helpful.
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  4. Anonymous
    2024-02-25T19:27:28+00:00

    no context menu showing for me ?? after right mouse

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