Folders are doubled and go to wrong location

Hello FolderFreak and welcome to the forums. I am not sure I can help you, but if you right click each folder and select properties it will tell you where they are located.

I am assuming you moved them to a different location. If you did it by the properties > Location tab, when it asks if you want to move the contents to the new folder you should select yes. Otherwise you can end up with those files in 2 locations, much as you are showing. I would suggest you not move pictures to the Documents folder. The libraries have a picture folder as well as a documents, music and such.

You can also look in C:/Users\yourusername and see what folders are there. That is the default location of the folders. You will notice the folder icon for the library folders are different than normal folders.



With the Library folders you can use Properties > Location tab and restore to the default location and start over.

Also this will show you how to move the Documents folder. Each folder can be moved in the same way. Just create a folder using the same name in the location you want to move them to. Then use the procedure in the tutorial to move each one to the appropriate folder, ie Pictures to pictures, documents to documents.

Documents Folder - Move Location in Windows 10 | Tutorials

During your reorganisation of drives, you have altered the 'Location' for several of your "user folders" and a couple of them are now pointing to the same location. That's why "when i go to change one of the files to the "pictures" files location, the other one changes as well" - both locations are the same and you are therefore looking at the same things whichever route you choose to get there.

When you relocate more than one user folder to the same location, Windows gets really upset and displays the name of one of them for both of their entries within This PC. So it is currently displaying the name of your Pictures folder for the Pictures folder entry and displaying the name of your Pictures folder for the Documents folder entry.

This is easy to fix.

I have a similar situation brought about by my own deliberate action
- both my Desktop and Downloads "user folders" have been set to use the location D:\Desktop
- In This PC, their entries are both named Downloads
- I can rename one of their entries if I want to but pretty soon afterwards they are both shown as Downloads again.

I have also seen a similar situation arise when a drive has been removed
- If Windows cannot find the correct folder path for, for example, the Documents folder entry in This PC it has a tantrum and changes it to whatever it can find.

Do note that all of the Pictures, 3D objects, Music, … entries you are looking at within This PC are not real folders but are merely a special type of shortcut pointing to real folders such as C:\Users\YourUserName\Pictures, C:\Users\YourUserName\Music, …

I have written YourUserName everywhere in this post - you need to substitute the actual user folder path for your user account as used in C:\Users.

Actions -

1 Open RegEdit and go to this key
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

2 Look for these entries -
My Pictures - this shows the folder path you have told it to adopt as your Pictures folder location
Personal - this shows the folder path you have told it to adopt as your Documents folder location
My Video - this shows the folder path you have told it to adopt as your Videos folder location {I can see from your diagram that this has been messed up as well}

3 Decide which real folder paths you want each of these to use. You might choose, just for example, D:\Documents or C:\Users\YourUserName\Documents for your Documents folder location.

4 Before changing anything in RegEdit, go back to File explorer. Look in C:\Users\YourUserName\Documents [or wherever you have decided upon such as D:\Documents] and check that the real folder paths you want to use already exist.
{actually navigate to C:\Users\YourUserName\Documents etc, do not use the entries in your diagram to get there because that can cause a lot of confusion and mistakes in this procedure}
- If they do not exist, create the real folder paths you need.
- When the real folder paths all exist [C:\Users\YourUserName\Documents etc], move the files you want in each folder to their real folders.

5 When all the folder paths exist & all the files are where you want them to be, go back to RegEdit
- For each entry that needs to be changed, double-click on the entry name [such as My pictures] and enter the real folder path you want to use in each case.
- {I always do this by copying paths in File explorer and pasting them into the entry within RegEdit to guard against typos}

6 Check that all is now well and close RegEdit. There should not be any problems; I have done this procedure lots of times.

That's it. The real folders paths should now have the contents you want and their entries in This PC should have the correct names.

Just post back with any queries and I should be able to resolve them.

Denis

You might consider backing up the content of any library you have difficulty with, then delete all reference to it, then recreate it using this tutorial:
Restore Default Libraries in Windows 10 | Tutorials
Following it there are these links for individual libraries:

• How to Add or Remove Camera Roll Library in Windows 10
• How to Add or Remove Documents Library in Windows 10
• How to Add or Remove Music Library in Windows 10
• How to Add or Remove Pictures Library in Windows 10
• How to Add or Remove Saved Pictures Library in Windows 10
• How to Add or Remove Videos Library in Windows 10

It is unfortunately true that people have reported problems after relocating folders, and it is quite possible to create a truly dreadful mess. A number of such examples have been reported.

For the future I would recommend two approaches:
a. Use disk imaging routinely as is recommended time and again here so you have an easy and undemanding way to recover Windows and any imaged partition to a previous working state. E.g. Macrium Reflect (free) + external storage for sets of disk images.

b. Leave the default libraries alone. Create new ones where you want them, and use those. (There is a tutorial).
The default libraries can get filled with folders created by installed programs.

The remaining issue might simply be a labelling one. It is possible for them to persist after corrections have been made.

1 Go to D:\Pictures by pasting that path into the File explorer address bar and if you find that it is actually labelled as "Documents", simply select the folder name and rename it Pictures.
2 Close and re-open File explorer. The Pictures folder should now have the correct label ["Pictures"].

Denis

I can see a further issue. In your Registry screenshot, the entry
{F42EE2D3-909F-4907-8871-4C22FC0BF756}
points to
D:My documents
instead of, I assume,
D:\My documents

Denis