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Quick Summary: These are “lock” files and do not contain any information; they can should be deleted. |
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What are ~$ files?
These are temporary lock files created by Office 365 (replaced by Microsoft 365), they are not the documents themselves. In the past when a user opened an Office file, their computer created an accompanying file that was named after the original file, but with a “~$” added to the beginning.
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You may see ~$ files that correlate to files that have since been moved or deleted, leaving only the ~$ file remaining causing you to believe the file has been corrupted. This is not the case. Corrupted files will not append “~$” to themselves as a warning.
The original file was moved or deleted before the migration to OneDrive/SharePoint. OneDrive and SharePoint do not create ~$ files since they support simultaneous editing from multiple users.
What do I do about these files?
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