I have messed up my File Manager settings

Belenus

This is a bit complex to explain properly.

Windows 10 Laptop. 512 GB SSD and a 1 TB Hard Disk

(C) Drive 512 GB SSD Windows and Apps

(D) and (E) drives on 1 TB Hard Disk

2 partitions Data on (D) 63.8 GB partition. Music and videos on (E) 867 partition.

See picture 1 below.

My Download folder was on the (C) drive. I decided to move the Download folder to the (D) drive by clicking on Properties – Location.

Instead of just moving the folder and its contents as a single folder it moved all the contents and spread them amongst the folder and files already on the (D) drive. That completely changed the way I want my (D) folder to look like. Instead of looking like picture 2 below. It now looks like picture 3 below. If I click on Name or Date Modified it shows everything by date and not alphabetical order as I want.

I have been able to recreate a Download folder on the windows © drive and that works as before but I cannot get my (D) drive to display as it did before.

Any suggestions of how I get my (D) drive to look like it did before.

Eyeful

1. Leo, at Ask Leo.com:
Keeps telling people to do regular system image back ups. Especially before making changes to their system.
This make recovery easy when trouble strikes. 
 
2. Did you make a system image backups? 

Vitor

The Downloads folder isn’t just a normal folder; it’s a special shell folder with a unique system path. When you change the location of such a folder, Windows doesn’t just move it—it redirects it to the new destination.

When the OP set \D: as the new location for Downloads, Windows redirected Downloads to \D:\ itself instead of creating a \D:\Downloads folder. As a result, all files in Downloads were placed directly in \D:, and Windows treated \D:\ itself as the Downloads folder.

If the OP had chosen something like \D:\MyDownloads instead, Windows would have moved all contents into that folder. But because \D:\ was chosen as the destination, Windows merged the contents directly into the existing structure instead of creating a new subfolder.
The OP needs to restore Downloads to it's default as a special shell folder to avoid further problems.

paradigital

Right click some white-space on your D drive and make sure grouping is set to none.  That will at least get your files and folders sorting by name or date modified (when clicking the relevant column header).

Belenus

paradigital said:

Right click some white-space on your D drive and make sure grouping is set to none.  That will at least get your files and folders sorting by name or date modified (when clicking the relevant column header).

That worked, Thank you very much. Very much appreciated. 

Is there a downside to having grouping set to none?

paradigital

None at all, it’s just a cosmetic change (that I also hate, so disable grouping any time Windows decides it wants to apply it).

Belenus

Eyeful said:

1. Leo, at Ask Leo.com:
Keeps telling people to do regular system image back ups. Especially before making changes to their system.
This make recovery easy when trouble strikes. 
 
2. Did you make a system image backups? 

I do have system image backups but my problem is not related to the system. It relates to a data only partition and, as above, that has now been fixed.

Thanks

Belenus

Vitor said:

The OP needs to restore Downloads to it's default as a special shell folder to avoid further problems.

Thanks.

I think I have already managed to do that.