OneDrive Icon Overlay Not Showing in Windows 11? The Complete Fix for Missing Sync Status Icons

Updated February 2026 — Covers Windows 11 24H2 and OneDrive v24.x

You have OneDrive set up and syncing, but those little green checkmarks, blue cloud icons, and sync arrows have vanished from your File Explorer. Despite files syncing perfectly, the visual status indicators simply refuse to appear. This maddening issue affects millions of Windows users, and the root cause is a little-known architectural limitation in Windows that has existed since the Windows XP era.

This comprehensive guide explains exactly why OneDrive icon overlays disappear, how the Windows icon overlay system works, and provides permanent solutions to restore your missing sync status icons.

Understanding Icon Overlays: The 15-Slot Problem

Windows uses a system called Icon Overlay Handlers — a type of Shell Extension — to display small badges on top of file and folder icons. These overlays are what show the Sync status (green check, blue cloud, sync arrows) for cloud storage services.

Here is the critical limitation: Windows supports a maximum of 15 icon overlay handlers. This limit is hardcoded deep in the Windows Shell (shell32.dll) and has remained unchanged since Windows XP.

Windows itself uses 4 of these 15 slots for system overlays:

• Shared folder overlay
• Shortcut arrow overlay
• Offline files overlay
• UAC shield overlay

That leaves only 11 slots for third-party applications. The problem? Modern systems often have far more than 11 applications wanting overlay slots:

If you have OneDrive and Dropbox installed simultaneously, that is already 10 overlay handlers competing for 11 slots — and if TortoiseSVN is also installed, you are requesting 19 overlays in a system that can only display 15.

How Windows Decides Which Overlays Win

Windows loads icon overlay handlers in alphabetical order by their registry key name. Once the 15-slot limit is reached, all remaining handlers are silently ignored.

This is why many applications — including Dropbox and TortoiseSVN — name their registry keys with leading spaces (e.g., " DropboxExt1" with spaces before the name) to sort higher alphabetically and claim priority.

OneDrive overlays use keys named like " OneDrive1" (also with a leading space), but if another application has more leading spaces, it wins the sort.

Diagnosing Your Overlay Situation

Before applying any fix, let’s see exactly what overlays are registered and which ones are active.

Method 1: Registry Editor

1. Press Win + R, type regedit, press Enter.

2. Navigate to:

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

3. You will see a list of all registered overlay handlers, sorted alphabetically.

4. Count the entries. If there are more than 15, the entries below slot 15 are being ignored.

5. Identify where OneDrive entries appear in the list. If they are below position 15, they will not display.

Method 2: ShellExView

1. Open ShellExView as Administrator.
2. Sort by Type and look for entries marked as “Icon Overlay Handler”.
3. The tool shows the CLSID, filename, and company for each handler, making it easy to identify which applications own which overlays.

Method 3: PowerShell Quick Check

Get-ChildItem "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers" |
    Select-Object @{Name="Position";Expression={$script:i++; $script:i}},
                  @{Name="Name";Expression={$_.PSChildName}},
                  @{Name="CLSID";Expression={$_.GetValue("")}} |
    Format-Table -AutoSize

This outputs a numbered list showing each overlay’s position. Anything beyond position 15 is inactive.

Fix 1: Reorder Overlays via Registry (The Nuclear Option)

The most reliable fix is to manually reorder the registry keys so that OneDrive overlays sort above other applications.

Step-by-Step

1. Open Registry Editor as Administrator.

2. Navigate to:

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

3. Rename the OneDrive entries to have more leading spaces. For example:

   • Rename " OneDrive1" to " OneDrive1" (add one more space at the beginning)
   • Repeat for all OneDrive entries (OneDrive2 through OneDrive5)

4. Alternatively, remove leading spaces from competitors you do not need:

   • If you do not use Dropbox overlays, rename " DropboxExt1" to "DropboxExt1" (remove the space)

5. Restart Explorer:

   taskkill /f /im explorer.exe & start explorer.exe

Warning: Some applications will re-add their overlays with leading spaces during updates. You may need to repeat this process after updating Dropbox, TortoiseSVN, or similar tools.

Automated Script

Save this as a .reg file and run it as Administrator to prioritize OneDrive:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

; Remove spaces from Dropbox overlays to lower their priority
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers\ DropboxExt01]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers\ DropboxExt02]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers\ DropboxExt03]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers\ DropboxExt04]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers\ DropboxExt05]

Important: Back up the ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers registry key before making changes (right-click the key → Export).

Fix 2: Remove Unnecessary Overlay Handlers

If you have applications that register overlays but you do not actually need the visual indicators, disable or remove them:

TortoiseSVN / TortoiseGit

These tools register up to 9 overlays each (for Modified, Added, Deleted, Conflict, etc.). If you work with Git via command line or VS Code, you likely do not need these:

1. Open TortoiseSVN → Settings → Icon Overlays.
2. Set “Show overlays and context menu only in explorer” to minimize overhead.
3. Or, uncheck specific overlay types you do not need.

Alternatively, disable them entirely in ShellExView by selecting all Tortoise overlay handlers and pressing F7.

Dropbox

If you primarily use OneDrive and Dropbox is secondary:

1. Open Dropbox → Preferences → Sync.
2. There is no built-in option to disable overlays, so use ShellExView to disable DropboxExt overlay handlers.

Fix 3: OneDrive Reset

Sometimes OneDrive’s overlay handler becomes unregistered due to updates or Windows patches. A full reset can fix this:

%localappdata%\Microsoft\OneDrive\onedrive.exe /reset

Wait 30 seconds, then restart OneDrive:

%localappdata%\Microsoft\OneDrive\onedrive.exe

After the reset, OneDrive will re-register its overlay handlers, which may resolve the issue if the handlers were corrupted.

Fix 4: Re-register the Overlay COM Objects

If OneDrive overlays are present in the registry but still not showing, the COM objects themselves might need re-registration:

# Find the OneDrive DLL path
$onedrivePath = (Get-ChildItem "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Microsoft\OneDrive" -Recurse -Filter "FileSyncShell64.dll" | Select-Object -First 1).FullName

# Re-register
if ($onedrivePath) {
    Start-Process regsvr32 -ArgumentList "/s `"$onedrivePath`"" -Verb RunAs
    Write-Host "Successfully re-registered: $onedrivePath"
} else {
    Write-Host "OneDrive shell DLL not found!"
}

Understanding Overlay Priority in Detail

Here is a complete priority reference for the most common overlay handler configurations:

Preventing the Problem From Recurring

After Windows Updates

Major Windows Updates (especially feature updates like 24H2) can reset icon overlay registrations. After updating:

1. Check the registry order.
2. Restart Explorer.
3. If overlays are missing, re-run the reorder script above.

After Application Updates

Dropbox and TortoiseSVN frequently re-register their overlays with leading spaces during updates. Consider:

• Creating a scheduled task that runs the registry reorder script on user login.
• Using Group Policy scripts in enterprise environments.

Use ShellExView for Monitoring

Keep ShellExView in your toolkit. Periodically check the Icon Overlay Handler list to ensure new software installations have not pushed your preferred overlays below the 15-slot limit.

Why Microsoft Has Not Fixed This

The 15-overlay limit has been a known issue for over 15 years. Microsoft’s official position is that icon overlays are a “limited shared resource” and applications should use alternative UI mechanisms (like status columns or thumbnail badges) instead.

In Windows 11, Microsoft introduced cloud files placeholders (via the Cloud Filter API) which can show sync status without using overlay handlers. However, not all cloud storage providers have adopted this API yet.

Summary

Missing OneDrive sync icons in File Explorer are caused by the Windows 15-icon-overlay limit — a decades-old system constraint. To fix it:

1. Check your registry for the number and order of overlay handlers
2. Reorder names to prioritize OneDrive (add leading spaces)
3. Remove unnecessary overlays from apps like TortoiseSVN or Dropbox
4. Reset OneDrive if handlers are corrupted
5. Monitor after updates to prevent recurrence