I generally leave my downloads in sub-folders within the downloads folder, but I've noticed that some files create duplicates outside of the sub-folders. For example, there is a big folder of custom kitchen cabinets. Once I use them, I sometimes have two copies of the file, one in the sub-folder and one just floating around loose in the downloads folder. This naturally makes my downloads folder bigger than it should be. Delphy's Download Organizer flags these as duplicates. Pages and pages of duplicates to scroll through

Last week I told the organizer to delete duplicates and the result was not pretty. My game wouldn't launch and I ended up restoring from the last back up and losing a couple of families I liked.

Is this duplication avoidable? If so, how? Should I just give up on the sub-folders and put everything straight in the downloads folder? I'm hesitant to do this because it sounds like throwing all the cutlery and silverware in one bin. You'd have a terrible time finding one teaspoon.

Do you have your Documents folder synching to One Drive or and cloud storage at all? If it's synching as you are playing then this could potentially create duplicates. Othewise, the only way I can think of duplicates being made is if you accidentally drag/drop files (which is easy to do, I do it all the time!).

Deleting files in the Downloads folder should not affect files in the neighborhood folders in that way, so the question is whether you somehow set up the DO to delete from the entire The Sims 2 folder.

The duplication issue itself - if you're using Windows 10 or 11, make sure OneDrive is turned off (and also make sure you have a backup of your files if you start messing around with it, as turning it off can cause it to delete files or remove entire folders if you're unlucky). Don't let any programs, including OneDrive, do auto synching for your game. The game needs access to the files, and locks them for use while the game is running - which could potentially explain the duplicates (it added accessible copies, maybe?).

If it's not related to anything like that, but simply "duplication" from having downloaded the files several times, you can delete the duplicates, but make sure to keep track of which ones you're keeping. If you're using the DO or other tools like that, don't let it delete anything without going through the list of all the files it has marked for deletion, since it will pick up everything it finds.

I uninstalled OneDrive weeks ago. That was the weekend after I found an old back up drive with some lost files that I eagerly restored, but I think it inadvertently restored some old setting. Uninstalling was the only way I could convince this blasted machine to not play Sims with files downloaded from the stinking cloud. My brother's kids had also asked me to copy some home video DVD's for his memorial service, and that was giving me fits as well. The desk lamp was faster than this computer. Bill Gates' ears should have been burning.

Leave it to say, I was very frustrated and have a whole rant saved up that you do not want to hear. Trust me. I can still sign in to OneDrive and manually sync anything I want to back up to the cloud, but I like to at least pretend I'm the boss of this computer.

I don't think I've done any dragging and dropping, but I guess it's possible. I'll have to watch it.