Duplicate Downloads folder keeps appearing

@MaloK Thanks for the reply. Took most of the night to copy the files, and had to skip a few due to long file names (which I don't understand, as the two paths have exactly the same length), so I'm a bit dubious about the copy.

Still, I proceeded as you said. However, I was unable to remove the junction (got "Access is denied"), and had to run...

Code:

fsutil reparsepoint delete "C:\Users\Me\Downloads"

...to sort it out.

This gave me a single Downloads folder in my user folder, with the standard Windows icon. I changed the location of this to point at D:\Downloads (not the copy), saying I didn't want it to copy my files, and now I have two Downloads folders showing in File Explorer, one with the standard Windows icon and one with the icon I assigned to D:\Downloads.

What do I do now? I'm a bit hesitant to create another junction without some advice. According to your instructions, when I changed the location of the Windows Downloads folder, it should have removed C:\Users\user\Downloads, but it didn't.

If I use dir in a command prompt, I only see one Downloads folder in my user folder.

Any idea what I do now? Thanks again.

First verify if the new download location is registered properly (Firefox and chrome) should have registered immediately.

Then If your directory C:\users\user\Download Directory does not have the Down Arrow anymore but the one on D: does.

try to delete the directory in C:\Users\User and create your junction. Once done copy files from both ends to insure all is good.

If this succeed, you can proceed to restore you directory.

Next time you do these kind of operations on large folders "Cut" the content of the directory and "Paste" it in another location on the same drive, this way you can secure thousands of files and many Gigabytes, in seconds.

Instead of "Copying" the files over completely, Windows simply updates the Allocation table and leaves the files where they are. (Much faster)

MaloK said:

First verify if the new download location is registered properly (Firefox and chrome) should have registered immediately.

Trouble with that idea is that they default to the last folder chosen, not the Downloads folder.

MaloK said:

Then If your directory C:\users\user\Download Directory does not have the Down Arrow anymore but the one on D: does.
try to delete the directory in C:\Users\User and create your junction. Once done copy files from both ends to insure all is good.
If this succeed, you can proceed to restore you directory.

I set the location of C:\Users\user\Downloads back to the default, so looking at C:\Users\user in File Explorer, I just saw the one Downloads folder, yellow with a blue down arrow.

I then deleted C:\Users\user\Downloads and created the junction. I now have C:\Users\user\Downloads with a plain yellow icon (no blue down arrow) that seems to work fine.

Does that sound like I did it right? I guess the main test will be to see if Windows creates a second Downloads folder!

MaloK said:

Next time you do these kind of operations on large folders "Cut" the content of the directory and "Paste" it in another location on the same drive, this way you can secure thousands of files and many Gigabytes, in seconds.
Instead of "Copying" the files over completely, Windows simply updates the Allocation table and leaves the files where they are. (Much faster)

Duh, that's so obvious! Thanks for pointing it out. Hopefully I won't need to do it again.

I'm going to leave this a day or so and see what happens. Thanks again for all the help.

From Windows initial Default.

1 - Move Downloads Location with "Windows location tab" to New Location
2 - Create junction named Downloads in Original location that points to New Location

That's all.

MaloK said:

From Windows initial Default.
1 - Move Downloads Location with "Windows location tab" to New Location
2 - Create junction named Downloads in Original location that points to New Location
That's all.

Yeah, I think that's what I did, but explained much more clearly!

Thanks again. As I said, I'll leave it a day or two to convince myself it's worked.

Should be good, the link will be used only by programs that have hard coded "Downloads location" in reality it should not get much uses.

Well, so far so good, no duplicate folder.

However, there is one small niggle, well, two actually...

1) I can't set an icon for the Downloads folder. With Music and Pictures, all I did was use the Location tab to point to the appropriate folders on my D: drive, and I was able to use the properties on the folder on the D: drive and set the icon using the "Change icon..." button on the Customise tab. When viewed in C:\users\me, the folders show the icon.

With Downloads, I can set an icon on the actual folder on D:, but when I look in C:\users\me, it shows a regular Windows folder icon, ie a plain yellow folder. It doesn't have the blue down arrow, nor the icon I set.

The other small niggle is that the Downloads folder when viewed in C:\users\me has a shortcut arrow in the bottom-right corner. My music and pictures folders don't.

This all makes me wonder why Windows is treating Downloads differently from Music and Pictures, even though I originally did exactly the same thing to all three.

Any ideas? Thanks again.

Yes these are both cosmetic and wont affect the good functioning of the config. I used this trick a lot on Autocad / Solid Workstations before they gave the option to move the download directory, because they sometimes download updates many gigabytes large and with small SSD the systems clogged in weeks.

MaloK said:

Yes these are both cosmetic and wont affect the good functioning of the config. I used this trick a lot on Autocad / Solid Workstations before they gave the option to move the download directory, because they sometimes download updates many gigabytes large and with small SSD the systems clogged in weeks.

Thanks, I know they are cosmetic. What I meant was, is there a way to get my custom icon showing and remove the shortcut arrow? Apart from the aesthetic appeal of choosing my own icons, it makes it much faster to see the one I want. The default Windows icons are all very similar, and I sometimes have to think twice when looking. I don't like thinking when I'm working, it puts me off my sleep .

Thanks again, any ideas?

I don't play a lot with that, I know you can change the link Icon with "Customize". But it doesn't remove the shortcut arrow.