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
    2022-03-01T17:36:45+00:00

    That is Dropbox's "smart sync" icon - where only a pointer to the file is synced. When you open the file, it will download.

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-03-01T22:56:51+00:00

    Diane: how sure are you about that?

    .

    I did some googling, couldn't find any confirmation. Drop box icons tend to look more like a stylized top view of an open box.

    https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=APq-WBvNJGXmRd5Xr4kjbaq4s3b7TQd11g:1646174890021&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=dropbox+icons&client .

    Some of their sync icons are very similar to OneDrives https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/sync-uploads/sync-icons

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  3. Diane Poremsky MVP 17,531 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2022-03-02T02:40:10+00:00

    That screenshot is from my dropbox and the online-only smart sync files are the only ones with this (annoying) icon on all my hard drives... so you tell me if I'm wrong...

    Your first link is the program app icons - that is the icon in the left side of the explorer window in my screenshots, the app in the tray, and on the taskbar when I open preferences.

    The sync icons link is the icons on dropbox tray icon as files sync -

    The file cabinet icons are on the shortcuts that sync down - they are fairly new, maybe 4 -6 months or so. They used to be like OneDrive and show the sync status via icons- now only the app has the sync status. The folders and files are either stored locally (no icon) or not (the file cabinet).

    When I right-click on the CSV file in my screenshot and check the Smart Sync settings, it is online only. (My menu is a mile long or I'd include the full menu)

    These are local - no icons.

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-03-02T05:29:20+00:00

    Thanks for the clarification.

    .

    I was just looking for clarification.

    .

    I misread the earlier reply to suggest that these "box" icons were part of OneDrive.

    .

    Thanks.

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  5. Diane Poremsky MVP 17,531 Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator
    2022-03-02T06:00:27+00:00

    The other person in the other thread mentioned OneDrive... all I know is I have 3 computers (all windows 11) and have them on the smart sync files in dropbox on all 3. And only in dropbox, not in my other cloud apps or other files.

    Now that I think about it, I may have had them since upgrading to windows 11... .i'll add my dropbox account to a vm with windows 10 and see what icons I get.

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