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.

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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
    2022-03-04T14:01:12+00:00

    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.

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  2. Anonymous
    2021-11-29T21:48:13+00:00

    This doesn't fix the problem! My task manager doesn't even have the columns I see in your screen shot. I'm on Windows 11. Is that the cause of this problem?

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-03-02T13:12:45+00:00

    Dear All

    The original question in this thread, posted on 25 October 2021, is:

    "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?"

    In the hundreds of responses since none has answered that question.

    Rather the conversation is about what to do when the icon appears, and why it is or is not a problem.

    Surely someone in @Microsoft knows what message the icon is intended to convey regarding the state of the file it is appended to. That is all I want to know.

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    6 people found this answer helpful.
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