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7:11 pm
When I upload pictures from my camera to my computer using Picasa, they go into both the “Pictures” and “My Pictures” folders. Thus, I have duplicates on my hard drive. I’ve backed up everything before July 2012 onto DVDs, then deleted those pictures and sub-folders from “My Pictures.” But they are all still in “Pictures.” When I load new pictures, now with Nov 2013 dates, they go into both folders. How can I avoid this?
(Note: I’m getting ready for a new computer and want my backup to be clean. I might even decide to copy pictures and documents selectively to the new computer if it will avoid moving some problems like this if I were to perform a Restore to the new hard drive. Advice on this is welcome, too. 
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8:45 am
July 2, 2010
Offline
hmmm – I don’t see how it is possible to delete pictures from “My Pictures” and have them still be in “Pictures” because “My Pictures” is just a virtual location that points to Pictures (or vice versa depending on your version of windows) – it’s called a Library. You can include multiple locations in any one library. So, for example, when I open my Pictures Library, I am seeing the contents of 5 different locations. Click on the screenshot below to see. What version of Windows are you using?
Ok, so let’s break it down. Instead of using Pictures OR My Pictures, I want you to use Windows Explorer and go to
Computer->C drive->Users->Sharon->Pictures (or “My Pictures” depending on your version of Windows)
Make a note of what you’re seeing there. Also find one unimportant picture or folder and rename it to “Sharons Test picture November 2013”. Now go to the Pictures library with Start->Pictures (or My Pictures depending on your version)
Look around – do you see Sharons Test Picture November 2013? You should. Then rename it again to “Second Test” and go back to C drive->Users->Sharon->Pictures. You should now see “Second Test” and not “Sharons Test” because they are one and the same file. Pictures and My Pictures are just 2 doorways into the same storage room of pictures.
This might take a bit of back and forth to figure out, so let me know your findings after doing this ‘sharons test’ ok?
9:27 am
Okay, I did what you instructed and I see that the picture is the same, regardless of which doorway I use to access it. But now I see that the 2 folders I have on my computer are both named “My Pictures.” One folder is dated 3/24/2013 and the other is 11/13/2013. The older folder contains sub-folders (with pictures in them) from 2007-2010. The newer one contains sub-folders dated 2010-2013. Somehow I seem to have gotten a second folder named “My Pictures” and there doesn’t seem to be any duplication of actual pictures even though the year 2010 is an overlap. (I checked a few pics from June 2010 to verify this.) Perhaps I can just combine the two folders into one?
Also, I’m using Windows 7 Home Premium. And when I imported new pictures from my camera this time they went into a new sub-folder under the latest “My Pictures” folder.
11:13 am
July 2, 2010
Offline
So, I’m curious … sometime in March (3/24/2013) did you have someone work on your computer? We often see these separate sets of Pictures when a technician had to clean up and reinstall the data on a computer drive. And, yes, I think you can combine them. Then you should be back to one “My Pictures” folder. Be sure it’s the right one – the one being reference by the Pictures Library.
11:19 am
No tech worked on my computer, but that might have been the time when I did the copying of pictures onto DVDs. So maybe I’m the culprit. I’ll do the combining of the folders, and I’ll make sure to use the right one (it’s the newest). Thanks for the help, and sorry for confusion at first about a “Pictures” folder that I thought I had.
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