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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88 additional answers

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-04-06T01:12:56+00:00

    I had the same issue but managed to resolve it!

    I just opened my 1 drive and it asked me to sign in, once i signed i had access and all the icons on my files were gone. But there was no prompt to do this and I'm also concerned that I cannot access my files remotely if i don't have one drive?

    I don't even want one drive to save my files i wish it would just go away!

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-04-04T22:45:53+00:00

    I had same issue so looked it up and found this thread. From the guy talking about task managers reply I kinda guessed it was a one drive issue so all I really did was try to refresh the one drive on my PC. So basically when i closed my file explorer and reopened it the problem basically fixed itself once onedrive started syncing again.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-03-29T22:42:46+00:00

    why does the bown box display in the lower left hand corner of my files and does let me open them?

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