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insertnamehere's avatar
insertnamehere
New member | Level 2
7 years ago

What is this UFO icon on some of Dropbox files online?

There is a UFO symbol next to one of my uploaded files, does anyone know what that means?
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  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    7 years ago
    Hi there, the UFO generally means it’s a file without an extension at the end, so Dropbox doesn’t know what filetype it is, such as ‘test’ instead of test.jpg, test.docx, test.pdf, and so on.
     
    If it’s supposed to have a filetype, rename the file with the extension and it should show a proper icon instead.
Jay's avatar
Jay
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
Hi there, the UFO generally means it’s a file without an extension at the end, so Dropbox doesn’t know what filetype it is, such as ‘test’ instead of test.jpg, test.docx, test.pdf, and so on.
 
If it’s supposed to have a filetype, rename the file with the extension and it should show a proper icon instead.
Chelles803's avatar
Chelles803
New member | Level 2
5 years ago

Is there a way to open a saved file in my Dropbox with the flying saucer as the icon?  I really need to figure out what these documents are.

  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    5 years ago

    Hi Chelles803, thanks for joining the Community!

    It depends on what type of file it was originally. If you know the general type of doc, then you can guess at the file type.

    The safest bets for me would be mp3 for music files, mp4 for videos, jpg for images, docx for documents, xlsx for spreadsheets, and so on. I could list out all the file types, but it would take too long!

    If you know who sent you the files, try asking them to see if they know what they were. Alternatively, if you renamed the file yourself, try looking at the version history of the file to see if the renaming is visible there.

    Hope this helps!

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