Share via

How to Get Rid of red Minus Sign on Desktop Icons

Anonymous
2023-11-28T19:35:26+00:00

I do not use One Drive and never will. It is not installed on my laptop, yet Windows 11 is showing a red minus sign on every desktop icon. How to I get rid of that?

Please actually READ MY MESSAGE before posting more useless replies. ONE DRIVE IS NOT INSTALLED. It is the first thing I remove when getting a new laptop

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneDrive | For home | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
  1. Anonymous
    2023-11-29T12:04:05+00:00

    Hi James D,

    Since OneDrive is not installed, you may rebuild icon cache in hidden system folder location below: C:\Users\User-Name\AppData\Local\IconCache.db Delete iconcache.db, and restart PC.

    Here's the steps on how to enable the hidden folder view in File Explorer: Open File Explorer from the taskbar. Select View > Show > Hidden items.

    If you require any further information, then please don’t hesitate to get in contact. I will be more than happy to assist you further.

    Kind Regards, Myk

    9 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments

4 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2023-11-29T11:56:26+00:00

    I do not have One Drive installed.

    2 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2023-11-28T20:18:17+00:00

    Hello James D, thanks for coming into forums. I'm Myk, an Independent Advisor and I'll be more than happy to help you.

    Kindly perform the steps below to see if it helps removing the minus sign on the Desktop icons:

    1. Press Windows key and Letter E to open File Explorer
    2. On the left pane, check if OneDrive is listed
    3. Right click on OneDrive > Click "Show more options" > Settings
    4. It will open Sync & backup, click on "Account" on the left pane
    5. Click Unlink this PC option under the account listed if there's any
    6. Right click on an empty space on the Desktop page, and select "Refresh" to see if the Minus sign disappears

    If you require any further information, then please don’t hesitate to get in contact. I will be more than happy to assist you further.

    Kind Regards, Myk

    2 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2023-11-30T13:26:20+00:00

    Thanks you!! That is exactly what I needed. Wish more people would actually READ the questions instead of being excited about "sharing" their knowledge.

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2023-11-28T20:01:03+00:00

    O365?

    OneDrive is not a backup, it’s a cloud location of your data.

    The default installation of Office 365 and its OneDrive component uploads all the contents of the PC  \My Documents\ folders to OneDrive, (syncs) and there will be a OneDrive folder in File Explorer containing cached copy of all the OneDrive content. And in Word etc the default Save location is set to OneDrive.

    No Docs/data is stored on the local PC

    If O365 not installed, win includes OneDrive but with only a 5gb storage and nothing is stored there unless explicity done so by the user.

    0 comments