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Orange box icon meaning
What does this orange box icon means? I'm on desktop, windows 11.
If the dropbox logo is in the bottom right corner near the time (Windows) right click it, then when the pop up comes up click on your initials in the top right corner, a drop down box will open and click on preferences. A new window will pop up for dropbox preferences, click on the sync tab. There is a section that says "save hard drive space automatically" yes or no. I had no checked, which is what you want, but then there is a drop down selection to the right that allows you to choose "available offline" or "online-only" choose available offline. I had online-only selected and as soon as I switched it to available offline all the little boxes went away.
Definitely uninstalled OneDrive - I double checked this morning.
Thanks for the suggestions regarding checking my sync options but the options you mentioned do not show up in the drop down menu. I did check to see if any files were set to 'selective sync' and none were.
Over a 4-6 week period I spent about 30 hours on the phone and sent about a dozen screen captures to a string of Dropbox support staff, each of whom escalated the problem to someone new, resulting in me having to start over explaining the problem. In the end, I was told it was a problem with an 'an extension' or OneDrive and they couldn't help - they refused to proceed further.
- the box icon does not necessarily appear on every file, in some folders it might just be on one or two, in others, like the one above it is on every file
- I only see the icon when I attempt to open files in Explorer
- If I go open Dropbox online, I can see and open the files except I need to download them to work on them so it is not a viable option
- If I pull the folder out of Dropbox and put it on my Desktop, the problem disappears
- If I put the folder back in Dropbox, the problem reappears, though it might be better or worse than it was originally
- Last night I shared a folder with my brother - he saw no orange boxes and had no trouble opening the files
- Clearly, the problem has to do with something on my laptop interfering with Dropbox - that is why I uninstalled OneDrive - unfortunately that wasn't the problem.
This is the last ticket # I kept (Ticket #23025473) - at this point the conversation had gone on for 3 weeks because it took each support person at least 24 and often 36 hours to respond, usually asking for yet another screenshot of something. I'd estimate that 1/2 of the support responses made it clear the person had not read what I sent as they often asked for information they already had.
- Walter
Dropbox Community Moderator
Thanks for the ticket ID and your feedback on this Kevin-54 - much appreciated.
I can see that it's closed since January. If you'd like to look into this issue with our support team again, you'll need to open a new ticket.
As for the issue at hand now, could you try creating a new OS profile on your computer and try to install and use the Dropbox desktop app there for testing purposes?
The issue at hand, is the exact same issue Dropbox support spent more than a month attempting to resolve before coming to the conclusion the problem wasn't specifically related to Dropbox but to another extension, app or program on my laptop and closing the ticket.
In the meantime, I had read this thread, assumed it was OneDrive and uninstalled it. Then I uninstalled Dropbox and reinstalled it - all to no avail. Is there ANY chance I'll get better support if I open another ticket? After all, at least 5 people were involved last time.
As to your suggestion to create a new OS profile on my laptop - I have absolutely NO idea how to go about doing that, much less how to open Dropbox using the new profile if I could figure out how to do it.
. (The whole reason I removed OneDrive).
- Nancy
Hope it’s OK to jump in here, Kevin-54.
To create a new user profile on your computer, you can follow these steps.
Other than that, I can suggest checking out this suggestion to make sure the Dropbox overlay icons are prioritized and see if the other icon will disappear after following them.
The icon is not the problem, it is merely a symptom. The problem is the that nearly half of the files I have stored in Dropbox cannot be opened in the desktop app. Supposedly, OneDrive created the filebox icon, that was why I completely deleted OneDrive and uninstalled and then reinstalled Dropbox - files still can't be opened. Nearly 2 months of slow motion help from Dropbox support staff has yet to yield solution.
- Megan
Hi from me too Kevin-54!
One thing that I want to ask is if this behavior of files not opening correctly, happens with all of your files, or just some specific ones?
After following the steps Nancy provided above, you should be able to see Dropbox icons next to your files, instead of the OneDrive ones you're currently seeing.
The reason I'm asking you to do this, is to identify if the files that fail to preview sync are online-only or available offline.
Even if you can't see any icons there, can you try changing the files to available offline, and giving it a go again?
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