At times, you may find that there are two blue arrows in icons. If you see them for the first time, you will want to know the meaning of these two blue arrows. Indeed, it just means that it is a compressed file or folder. MiniTool Software will tell you how to easily remove them without hurting your computer.

What Are the Two Blue Arrows on the Desktop Icons?

You may not that some icons on your Windows have an overlay icon on them. When seeing them, you will ask: what are the two blue arrows on my desktop icons?

two blue arrow on icons

Normally, these icons are common overlay arrow icons that are the shortcut icons or padlock icons which means that there are some private items in a non-private directory. These two blue arrows on icons mean that the item is a compressed file or folder.

Usually, you compress files and folders to save disk space on Windows. You can compress a file or a folder by using the Windows File Compression. The selected data is compressed with an algorithm and it is re-written so as to occupy less space.

When you want to open the compressed file, it will be decompressed first and then you can access it successfully. This means that it will take more time to read a compressed file. Thus, it will consume more processing power.

If you move a file to a compressed folder, what will happen? There are two situations:

  • When you add a file from a DIFFERENT NTFS drive to a compressed folder, the file will also be compressed.
  • When you add a file from the SAME NTFS drive to a compressed folder, that file will still keep its original state whether it is compressed or uncompressed.

The two blue arrows on desktop icons cam appear when you compressed a file or a folder. When you move a file or a folder to a compressed folder, the two blue arrows can also come.

Now, you know what the two blue arrows on icons on Windows are. They are not errors and can't influence the normal operation of your computer. But, you may still want to recover them from your computer.

It is very easy to remove the two blue arrows on icons. You can just depress the file or folder via Properties on Windows. Then, the two blue arrows will disappear.

How to Remove the Two Blue Arrows on Icons?

Access Properties to Decompress the File or Folder

To do this job, you need to follow these things:

1. Right-click on the compressed file or folder.

2. Select Properties from the popup menu.

3. Click Advanced under the General tab.

4. Uncheck the Compress contents to save disk space option.

Uncheck the Compress contents to save disk space option

5. Click OK.

6. Click OK.

7. Select the option you want to use to apply the change.

Select the option you want to use to apply the change

8. Click OK.

Now, you can discover that the two blue arrows on icon are disappeared.

See! You can just remove the two blue arrows in icons with several clicks. This will not hurt the data on your computer. You can feel free to do it.

Added Information

If you delete your compressed file or folder by mistake, you can use professional data recovery software to get it back. MiniTool Power Data Recovery is worth trying.

You can get more information from this post: Full Guide to Do ZIP File Recovery with MiniTool Software.

About The Author

Stella

Position: Columnist

Stella has been working in MiniTool Software as an English Editor for more than 4 years. Her articles mainly cover the fields of data recovery including storage media data recovery and phone data recovery, YouTube videos download, partition management, and video conversions.