What are the double blue arrows that sometimes appear on my desktop icons and pictures and how can I get rid of them? When a folder or file is compressed with NTFS to save space, Windows 10 will add a double blue arrows overlay at the top right corner to show compression status of the folder/file. If you’re annoyed by this odd and inconsistent behavior, here are 2 simple ways to remove double blue arrows on compressed folders/files in Windows 10.

Method 1: Remove Double Blue Arrows for All Compressed Folders/Files

All you need to do is put a blank icon file somewhere on your PC, then make a small registry change to make Windows display this blank image instead of the blue double arrows icon.

1. First of all, download blank_icon.zip and extract the blank.ico file to C:\Windows.
2. Press the Windows key + R keyboard combination to open the Run box. Type regedit and press Enter to open Registry Editor.

   

3. Now Navigate to the following location:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer

   

   Right-click on the Explorer subkey on the left pane, and select New -> Key.

4. Name the new key “Shell Icons“, and then right-click it and select New -> String Value.

   

5. Name the new string “179“, and then double-click it to set its value data to C:\Windows\blank.ico.

   

6. Close Registry Editor. Log off or restart Windows 10 for the change to take effect.

Method 2: Remove Double Blue Arrows for Certain Folders/Files

If you just want to remove double blue arrows for a certain folder or file, just decompress it to turn off NTFS compression.

1. Open File Explorer and browse to the folder or file with double blue arrows overlay, right-click on it and select Properties from the context menu.
2. Under the General tab, click the Advanced button.

   

3. Tick the checkbox for “Compress contents to save disk space“. Click OK.

   

4. If you selected a folder, then you will be prompted to tick “Apply changes to this folder, subfolder and files” and click OK. It will take some time to decompress all its subfolders and files.

   

5. At this point you should see the double blue arrows has disappeared from your folder/file icon. That’s it!

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