grey box at right of 'inbox' with 3 dots in it - what is this. Also frequent connection issues

Grey box to the right of ‘inbox’ with 3 dots in it - what is this, and how to remove. also frequent connection issues

The three dots indicate when a sub-folder on an IMAP account has new messages, but they have not yet been synced.

You can open the folder, wait for the scheduled sync, or click on Refresh.