File with a grey circle on my computer - how to get rid of it?

[twopianohands]

Hi!

I never had any issues with Dropbox, all just went smooth. For a few weeks now I sometimes get a grey circle in front of a file that i want to put into the Dropbox. It's only when I move a file to Dropbox on my laptop. No problems when I upload something from my iPad.

Dropbox does not upload this file, I cannot work with it.

What does this symbol mean? And how can I get rid of it?

[Walter · Accepted solution]

Hey @twopianohands - thanks for posting on our Community and happy Friday!

This icon means that the file is online only. Could you try making it available offline and let me know how it goes?

Thanks so much! 

[twopianohands]

it worked, I made it available offline and it has the green corcle now. but why do I have to do this? I never had to before and all the files got the green circle immediately.

[Walter]

Glad to hear that did the trick @twopianohands 

We recently introduced the option to make files online only to users on the Basic plan - perhaps this is why you only noticed this lately? 

[twopianohands]

Could be, ok! So that means that on my iPhone and iPad the files were already always only online, but on the Windows-Laptop they were automatically also offline. And that changed now and I have to deal the same way with the files on my laptop as I have before on the other devices. do I get that right?

Thanks a lot!

[Walter]

The files you see on the mobile app for iOS and iPadOS are a preview of your files anyhow @twopianohands - not the actual files. This is because the mobile app is merely a way to preview your files and take quick actions but not actually sync them to your device as this could lead to memory and storage issues. 

I hope this clears things up a tad! 

[twopianohands]

It does, thanks a lot!

[Walter]

No biggie @twopianohands - I'm glad we sorted this out in the end.

See you around the Community and have a lovely weekend!