Office documents appear with an orange/yellow box in front of them. They won't open

Anonymous
2021-12-15T15:12:22+00:00

I recently upgraded to Windows 11 pro. I reviewing my locally stored documents, several of them have an altered ICON with what looks like a file storage box to the left of the standard application ICON. None of these files will open by double-clicking. I chatted with MS support this morning and the agent couldn't figure it out either. Fortunately, most of these documents are also on OneDrive, but I have >100 with this issue and it will take time to find and restore a working copy.

Has anyone seen this?

Thanks,

Tom

[Moved from Word / For business / Windows]

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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  1. Diane Poremsky MVP 17,531 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2022-12-20T04:34:57+00:00

    I have that icon on all dropbox files that are marked for cloud. If you right-click on a file an make it available on the computer, will it open?

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  2. Suzanne S Barnhill 279.3K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2022-10-27T12:31:42+00:00

    Read the previous few replies for suggestions.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-10-25T02:49:20+00:00

    To anyone who experiences this issue in the future,

    I resolved this issue by going to my OneDrive settings and toggling the "Files On Demand" setting off and then back on again.

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  4. Diane Poremsky MVP 17,531 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2022-08-21T04:35:49+00:00

    If the icon is on OneDrive files - signing in should fix it. If its in another cloud service, I don't have a solution.

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  5. Diane Poremsky MVP 17,531 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2022-06-27T14:14:12+00:00

    In every case it is one of two things:

    The user is not signed into the app for the cloud service where the files are hosted

    Or

    The files are marked for online only. For files stored in OneDrive, its Free Up space, in Dropbox, its online only.

    What is the Brown File Box Icon on Files in Windows 11? | @Poremsky.com

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