My Documents seems to have a clone of folder files

[CATHY HESTER]

I seldom store docs in my documents but I have various folders with essential files. The other day I noticed My Documents had over 15,000 files. They were the same names of the files in my folders. I checked my folders and they were full of the same files. After checking this carefully, I deleted the files in my documents. All the files in the various folders were gone. I restored them. Then I opened files from my documents and edited them. Sure enough they were updated in the original folder. I renamed a file from the my documents and again its name was changed in the original folder.

Does anyone know what is happening here. Is there a cloning feature that I might have turned on accidentally? I can't figure this out. Any help is appreciated.

 

[TrainableMan]

OK, your files are not cloned. Libraries are simply pointers to another location, so you are editing, deleting, renaming the exact same files.

Could you take some screenshots and post them for me?

First, under libraries, Right-click on Documents and choose Properties, screenshot that. It should look like this:

Cancel that window and then expand the folder under Documents (normally it would be "My Documents" and screenshot that so I can see the files/folders there:

 

[CATHY HESTER]

I worked on this all day yesterday--out of desperation, I made sure everything was backedup and then I reset the defaults and all the thousands of files were gone from the My Documents folder. Then I restored my main folder and subfolders from my external hard drive and there are no files in the My Documents. I have the problem fixed, but I still don't know what happened. I appreciate your help. The properties for the Libraries looks just like yours at this point. Prior to that it showed a USER folder from my C drive. Since I restored the defaults, I can't capture how it looked previously. Any ideas or explanations would be great! Thanks for your help.

 

[TrainableMan]

Generally it is a situation where the user accidentally drags and drops the folder(s) into the library. I'm not exactly sure if they have to be holding a ctrl or alt key or if it is just automatic if you drop it on the root library pointer because I've never done it myself. But I have had to resolve the issue once a customer has done it.

 

[CATHY HESTER]

Well thank you for you interest. I'm sorry I didn't clip the properties before I attempted the set to default option. I was just anxious to see if that would do the trick. I know I didn't drag and drop. It will remain a mystery, but next time I'll know how to fix it. I appreciate your help. Enjoy the rest of your day.

 

[TrainableMan]

Where I've seen it is on laptops because the touchpad can be very sensitive, the user lifts their finger for a second and what they are dragging gets dropped, or when a second finger touches the pad it can treat it as a double click; both things cause unpredictable results.