Two blue arrows at top right of icons

On some icons I am seeing a two blue arrows at the top the right pointing towards each other. I first noticed it on the icons on folders which I archived which happened randomly. I archived the folder and the text went blue as expected, then when I went to the folder again the text was black and the folder icon has these arrows. When I just recently installed Office 2007, I noticed the same arrows on the icons for the programs.

OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (the latest update: 1115) Application: Microsoft Office 2007 suite and file explorer

Solution 1:

I archived the folder and the text went blue as expected...

Blue text in Explorer = NTFS compression is enabled via the properties (this has been standard in Windows for many versions now).

Two blue arrows is Windows 10's new way of showing the same thing, at the icon-level.

Reference/More info:

• Compress or Uncompress Files and Folders in Windows 10
• Properties dialog image source

edit:

When I just recently installed Office 2007, I noticed the same arrows on the icons for the programs.

That's kind of weird, and is may be just a matter of icon cache corruption.

For that, here's a couple things to try:

Ensure the EXEs are not actually compressed.

Try creating new shortcuts to the EXEs and see if they appear as expected.

Try clearing Windows' icon cache and see if that corrects the icons. For that, see this existing SU question: Refresh Icon Cache Without Rebooting

Solution 2:

To elaborate on the potential root cause, this will occur more often on Windows 10 systems that are running relatively low on free disk space. The Windows Update process will automatically compress files and folders to ensure that crucial operating system patches will install successfully:

Compressing files

To help free up disk space, this update may compress files in your user profile directory so that Windows Update can install important updates. When files or folders are compressed, they appear as having two blue arrows overlaid on the icon. Depending on your File Explorer settings, you may see icons that look larger or smaller. The following screen shot shows an example of these icons.

After you install the update, your files are restored to their original state, and the blue arrows disappear from the file icons in File Explorer. At any point during the update process, you should be able to access your files.

Sources:
Windows Update - KB4023057 Release Notes
Microsoft trying to push KB4023057 again to user systems