Green or blue icons on my files after uninstalling the Dropbox desktop app on Windows

Hey stang92x - sorry to hear you're having issues with this.

These green icons do not seem to be coming from Dropbox - you can have a look here to check the Dropbox syncing icons, if needed. Do you happen to have any 3rd party apps that might be syncing or monitoring your files somehow? 

Let me know more and we'll take it from there, Steve. 

Yes it might be onedrive... I have tried everything

I am also talking to windows about this [can you look over?]: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_11-wintop_apps-win_subtopwinapps/uninstall-dropbox-problem/0b8747cc-b1ea-4170-948b-662bf3efcb4b?messageId=e60904bd-a7d4-4deb-b9e6-c6aa0954dc5d

I just tried to uninstall onedrive then restart and still there

Also, currently have the norton backup activated as well... it might be that!

stang92x wrote:

Now all of my files on my computer have a green box with a white checkmark or a blue box and 2 arrows pointing right in the bottom left corner.

As Walter mentioned, those icons aren't from Dropbox. Here's what I suspect is happening ...

Windows only allows so many icon overlays, 15 to be exact, and 4 of those are reserved by for use by Windows. That leaves a maximum of 11 overlays that can be visible, and Dropbox uses many of those. With the many sync applications in use these days, conflicts tend to occur. You install OneDrive, Git, or any other sync application and they register a whole bunch of icon overlays. Next you install Dropbox and it registers it's own icon overlays. Since Dropbox was installed last, those are the overlays that you see on your files.

Now you decide that you no longer need Dropbox installed. You uninstall it and Dropbox unregisters the overlays that it registered previously. That moves the overlays from your other applications back up to the top of the list, causing them to be displayed after Dropbox is removed.

So, Dropbox isn't causing those icons to appear on your files. Dropbox is only removing its own icons from your system, and another application has moved up in the order and is now able to display its own icons.

Hi there stang92x​  and welcome back to the Dropbox Community. I’m really glad to hear everything’s sorted with syncing your files and thank you for coming back to share your update. It’s always so helpful for others to learn from these experiences!

I’m Theresa 👩‍💻, one of the Community Managers here in the forum. I love jumping into conversations like this or kicking off new ones throughout the community. Now that you’ve uninstalled the app, I’m curious... do you still use Dropbox through the web, or do you have a favourite feature you’re hanging onto?

Looking forward to hearing from you,

T😸 (Dropbox Community Manager)

I will still use the dropbox on the web and on other computers.

And my favorite feature is how everyhing is so smooth [uploading, downloading and organizing] considering how much code is involved