large number of files have a file drawer icon on file icon and wont open

Question

I have a large number of files stored on Onedrive that I'm unable to access the icons for all of the have what looks like a file drawer on the bottom left hand corner I've tried re syncing restarting and resigned in to Onedrive and nothing seems to work any other suggestions Here's a copy I want the icon looks like.

Answer 1

Hi,

Thank you for sharing your question. I understand how worrying it is to suddenly see a new icon on many of your OneDrive files especially when they won’t open after you’ve already tried resyncing, restarting, and signing in again. It makes sense that you’d want to know what this icon means and how to get access to your files again.

The drawer‑style icon on the lower‑left corner of your file thumbnails usually indicates that the file is an online‑only OneDrive file, meaning the file is stored in the cloud but not currently available on your device. Windows uses this overlay when the file has the FILE_ATTRIBUTE_OFFLINE flag and has 0‑byte placeholder content until it successfully downloads. If the file does not open, this typically means your device is not able to download the file from OneDrive due to sync issues, network problems, or account connection problems.

To resolve this, Microsoft and community guidance recommend steps such as unlinking and relinking OneDrive, turning on Always keep on this device, or disabling Files On‑Demand so that OneDrive downloads full copies of your files again. These steps restore normal sync behavior and remove the brown/drawer icon from affected items. If the files still won’t open, confirm you are fully signed in to the correct OneDrive account and that OneDrive sync is enabled.

To help pinpoint the issue, could you tell me whether any of your files open after some time or if every file with this icon fails immediately when you try?

Feel free to follow up  I’m here to help you get OneDrive syncing normally so your files open again.

 

I hope this helps.

 

Best Regards,

Noel