What do the Onedrive Icons in Windows Explorer mean

I see a number of icons in the status column of onedrive in Windows Explorer. But I’m not sure the meaning of them. There is a green checkmark in a circle, a blue cloud, arrows that point to each other, and a snowman.

Any pointers to info or help is appreciated.

Craig

Conversation 5 comments

  • Mike Cramer

    25 November, 2017 - 10:53 am

    <p>The green checkmark means a copy of the file is in the cloud and it's also synched to your PC. The data is local and occupies disk space.</p><p><br></p><p>The blue cloud means the file is only in the cloud, and what you see in File Explorer is a placeholder. It occupies virtually no disk space since it exists as an entry in a database. It will behave like a local file, both manually and via open/save browsers in programs, except Windows will download it as needed.</p><p><br></p><p>The arrows mean the file is synching with the cloud.</p><p><br></p><p>I'm not sure what the "snowman" icon represents. I didn't even notice it until you mentioned it.</p><p><br></p><p>To save space, you can convert a local file (green checkmark) to a placeholder (cloud) by right-click &gt; free up space. </p>

    • arunphilip

      25 November, 2017 - 1:07 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#220697"><em>In reply to Donkey_Gas:</em></a></blockquote><p>To add on to what Donkey_Gas said, when you see a pair of blue icons (i.e. file sync in progress), you can hover the mouse over the OneDrive icon in the notification area (a.k.a. system tray) in the bottom right, to see the progress. Single click it to get a toast popup that shows the list of files that are currently syncing, or were recently synced. </p>

      • craigsn

        Premium Member
        26 November, 2017 - 7:15 am

        <blockquote><a href="#220734"><em>In reply to arunphilip:</em></a><em> &amp; all the other replies too:</em></blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote><em>Thanks for the help on this everyone. I suspected the snowman meant it was shared, and that the arrows meant syncing, but the other 2 were a mystery. </em></blockquote><p><br></p>

  • harmjr

    Premium Member
    26 November, 2017 - 12:12 am

    <p>I see the snowman icon on folders I have shared with others.</p>

  • Ian S.

    26 November, 2017 - 6:02 am

    <p><img src=""><img src=""><img src="http://i65.tinypic.com/11i1zro.png"></p><p>LOL If you're talking about the grey icon, it means your folder is shared.</p>

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