What are Green Check Marks on Desktop Icons and How to Remove Them

Quick Tips

• In most cases, simply refreshing the desktop or closing the OneDrive app should make the green checkmarks disappear.
• Try unlinking your OneDrive account or rebuilding the icon cache on Windows to see if that helps.
• If the issue persists, consider deleting registry files associated with OneDrive as a last resort.

What Do Green Check Marks on Desktop Icons Mean

Green check marks on your desktop files, folders, and shortcuts indicate that they are successfully backed up to your Microsoft OneDrive account. Here are two types of green check marks that appear on Windows desktop icons:

• Solid green check mark: This indicates that the specific file or folder is backed up to OneDrive and is also available locally on your device.
• Outlined green check mark: This indicates that the file is only available online, meaning you’ll need to download it to access it offline.

If you don’t wish to see these tiny green check marks on your desktop icons, try out the following tips to get rid of them.

Fix 1: Refresh the Desktop

While this may seem simple, several users in a Microsoft community post reported fixing the issue by refreshing the desktop icons. Hence, you should start with that. Right-click anywhere on any empty spot on your desktop and select Refresh.

Fix 2: Close the OneDrive App

Another straightforward way to remove the green check marks from the desktop icons on Windows is to close the OneDrive app. To do so, click the OneDrive icon on the taskbar. Then, tap on the gear-shaped icon and select Pause syncing > Quit OneDrive.

Fix 3: Disable the Desktop Backup

If you don’t want to close OneDrive and continue using it for other purposes, you can prevent it from backing up desktop items and displaying check marks. Here’s how:

Step 1: Click the OneDrive icon on the taskbar. Click the gear-shaped icon and select Settings.

Step 2: In the Sync and backup tab, click the Manage backup button.

Step 3: Turn off the toggle next to Desktop.

Step 4: Click the Stop backup button.

Fix 4: Unlink OneDrive Account

If disabling the desktop backup does not help, you can try unlinking your OneDrive account from your PC. Here are the steps for the same.

Step 1: Open OneDrive app settings.

Step 2: Select the Account tab from the left pane and click Unlink this PC.

Step 3: Select Unlink account to confirm.

Fix 5: Rebuild Icon Cache

At times, green check mark icons won’t go away from desktop icons even after you disable OneDrive backup or unlink your account. This usually happens due to corrupt icon cache data. You can try rebuilding the icon cache on Windows to see if that solves the problem.

Step 1: Press the Windows key + X and select Terminal (Admin) from the list.

Step 2: Copy and paste the following command in the console and press Enter to navigate to the directory where Windows saves the icon cache:

cd /d %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer

Step 3: Run the following command to delete the icon cache.

del iconcache*

Fix 6: Modify Registry Files

If none of the previous solutions work, you may need to delete certain registry entries to make the green check marks on desktop icons go away.

Step 1: Press the Windows key + R to open the Run dialog box. Type regedit in the box and press Enter.

Step 2: Paste the following path in the address bar at the top and press Enter.

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers

Step 3: Right-click on the first OneDrive subkey and select Delete.

Step 4: Select Yes to confirm. Repeat this to delete all the OneDrive subkeys one by one until the green check marks disappear.