Folders within folders that shouldn't be

Couldn't quite believe what i was looking at. Have created a new folder with name of South Island for photos of trip. Very basic. When i looked at it ,just before ,it had the pictures that i had put in but it also contained most of the other folders from the desktop which had nothing to do with the new folder and i didn't methodically move the other folders into South Island. Those folders still appear to be on the desktop so i trashed the ones from within South Island but the ones on the desktop also disappeared. i then tried giving the ones on the desktop different names but the names automatically also changed on the folders in South Island so didn't fool the computer for one minute. I moved them from South Island onto desktop but they still showed in both places. I can trash the whole of South Island(!) but then i might loose everything when i empty trash.The only action i had taken was ( I thought) to click on the column display option.I'm retaining my sanity because you Kaveman and others at Mac Help are there.

Oh, Don't delete or move anything.

Do a full restart.

Have done a restart but nothing has changed.........

could you post a screen snap? Command - Shift - 4

I can take a picture easily enough.. i presume you mean of the contents of the folder... how do i attach it to a reply to you..do i use "insert image"? What it seems to be is that the folder South Island now is a directory for the Desktop except for HD icon and an icon for Solitaire. You will see an (empty)folder named Sth Island that i created to move the pictures into but i haven't done that yet, it wouldn't have fixed the problem anyway.

Have tried "insert image" and you will know it hasn't worked. Copy and paste isn't an option as Paste doesn't come up so i will now try the advanced reply. Ok have had to do it twice.First one was invalid so have changed it to jpeg. It says its been done. hope it goes through.

I think you've just change the window to browser view. At the top of the window there a set of 3 buttons, one is Icon view ( 4 little squares ) the next is List view ( 4 horizontal lines ) and the last is Browser view 3 oblongs. Click the first button.

Stone the b----- crows and all the rest. I couldn't see for looking, i had clicked so much. Thank you i get it now. Your assessment was right but it was the middle button of horizontal lines that i needed. The oblongs give me that whole view of the desktop even though i'm looking at one folder. I have checked other folders and its the same thing. i thought the problem had occurred at that time of changing the view option but didn't understand. Once again the old eMac hasn't failed. Knighthood is on the way.