OneDrive files suddenly have a brown box icon on the lower left-hand corner. What does this mean?

Anonymous
2021-10-25T10:24:49+00:00

I use OneDrive's File-on-demand feature.

Somehow out of nowhere, my online-only files (files marked with cloud icon) in my OneDrive folder are marked with this brown box symbol in the lower left-hand corner of each file icons. What does this icon mean?

Many options in the right-click menu are also missing from all files in the OneDrive folder (both with and without brown box icon), notably the option to control OneDrive file-on-demand like "Free up space" and "Always keep file on this device".

The "Status" column that shows the file-on-demand icons like Cloud & green checkmark in Details view is also missing.

I have just encountered this today for the first time. What does this icon brown box icon mean? I've tried searching and can't find any explanation.

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneDrive | For education | Windows

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Anonymous
2021-12-10T19:36:54+00:00

Hi,

I am not sure if everyone has this app, but I had the One Drive App, pre-installed for my new windows 11 device. On the app, just hit sync. Doing this resolved the brown box icon issue for me.

Hope this helps,

Cheers

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Anonymous
2021-12-08T19:12:16+00:00

Okay, so i did fix it myself, just one question, are is your onedrive connected? Because that was my problem

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-06-14T07:44:26+00:00

    I had the same issue with a user. Apparently the OneDrive connections was lost.

    My solution was as simple as relaunching OneDrive and sign in again.

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-04-21T07:27:43+00:00

    I was able to fix my problem by going to apps and right clicking on the one drive app. From there I clicked on (run as administrator) then selected yes.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-03-10T21:02:08+00:00

    I totally agree! One drive driving me crazy. Dropbox more than I need but won’t offer me a reduction of storage space. I can’t find half the files I’m looking for or they have some icon that I don’t know what it means. I’m so done with this!!!!

    Brown Box Fix: Hi if you look on page five you will see TinaKo's response, OneDrive. Read below I and Luc66 were able to get rid of the "Brown Box".

    Copied here for your convienience.

    TI

    TinaKo Replied on March 4, 2022

    ReplyIn reply to JustinFaz's post on February 23, 2022 I jumped to the end of this thread to see if anyone had solved this, so apologies if this was posted somewhere in the middle.

    I too started noticing file box icons. Just within the past few days. Then I noticed that looking at any file required a wait. It was obviously downloading the files as I need them. This is not what I want. I saw the same thing happen on my dad's computer around the same time.

    I was already logged into my OneDrive account.

    I fixed the issue by:

    1. Click on cloud icon in task bar (lower right of screen). The OneDrive dialog box pops up.
    2. Settings gear icon.
    3. Settings
    4. Settings tab
    5. Files On Demand
    6. "Save space and download files as you use them" had somehow gotten selected (wasn't me). I unchecked this and it began downloading.

    All my little green checkmarks are back. But the options to decide download status by file/folder is still gone. I used to be able to select which files I wanted always downloaded on a file/folder case basis, but that option I could not find in the "improved" Explorer menus any more. So probably it will download stuff when you open it and it will kick around for a while and then be automatically deleted.

    • You can decide that anything you put in the cloud is also synced to your harddrive (steps 1-6 above)
    • You can decide which folders on your hard drive drive to upload ("Choose OneDrive folders to sync" in the Explorer right-click menu "Show more options").

    I have enough hard drive space so that I don't care about the new limitation.

    Reply   Report abuse You and 1 person found this reply helpful

    CO CJ Office Replied on March 4, 2022

    ReplyIn reply to TinaKo's post on March 4, 2022 Nobody is asking how do you fix this! Everybody is asking what are the new unexplained symbols that Microsoft have introduced without explanation! CJ

    Reply   Report abuse

    1 person found this reply helpful

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    LO LoriWard1 Replied on March 4, 2022

    ReplyIn reply to TinaKo's post on March 4, 2022 Thank you. Thisis the most helpful reply I have received. Reply   Report abuse

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    PE petersnedeker Replied on March 4, 2022

    ReplyIn reply to TinaKo's post on March 4, 2022 I Think that TinaKo got the right idea. I am not good with computers, but did open One Drive played around some (sorry I can not replicate what i did), but the problem got fixed. So I am happy!

    Open One Drive!

    Reply   Edit

    LU Luc66 Replied on March 10, 2022

    ReplyIn reply to TinaKo's post on March 4, 2022 This fixed it for me! Reply   Report abuse

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