A client recently had troubles finding the files they had downloaded from the internet and so I did my best to explain just what it is I do to any windows 7 machine, in hopes to make it easy to manage and maintain these files:
This 'internet downloads' library is what I create on any windows 7 machine so that it makes it easy for you to find anything you click on and download to your computer. It acts as a buffer so that in the case of a software program you are downloading to install, you don't accidentally download it directly to your documents folder, for example, and then end up with a real mess... in the case of the internet downloads folder on the computer, this is something I create off of the root directory (normally c:) as (c:\internet downloads) That way it is not part of the windows hierarchy.
Within Windows Vista and Windows 7 the 'downloads' folder is where things typically get downloaded to from within the web browser. This folder is within the user's account and so I create a new LIBRARY with this folder as well as the new c:\internet downloads folder I had created. That way you only need to go one place, the INTERNET DOWNLOADS LIBRARY to find the file(s) you are looking for. Generally you have the folder sorted by 'date' and so if you click on the DATE column at the top, you will notice the Carrot points up or down, depending on when you click it.. this will sort items in ascending or descending order so the most recent item you downloaded will appear at the top.. now, this being said, you need to note that the 'library ' is a combination of multiple places, one being the 'downloads' folder as well as the c:\internet downloads folder, therefore even though you may have it sorted by most recent at the top, in the case of the internet downloads library, there are two places and so you may find yourself scrolling quite a ways down the page in order to find the other folder... what you should be doing is cleaning this folder out.. in fact there should be nothing in it once you have successfully moved the items you want to keep and delete what you don't want..
So for the cleaning/sorting process what I would do is click on the NAME and sort it by name, as you will find many items you have clicked on more then once and so it is given the name "whatever" and then "whatever(1)" and possibly even more like"whatever(2) and so on.. this means each time you click to download the file, if it already exists it will simply be given the (1) (2) and so on, it does not get over written... so what you should easily be able to do is delete all the (1) (2) (3) etc.. SO LONG AS the file size and date are the same.. noting that if the file didn't successfully download and/or the file name is the same but has since been added to, the size may be different, In which case you would obviously want to keep the latest one, which may be the one with a (3) after it... once you have deleted the other files you can RIGHT CLICK on the file and RENAME it and remove the (number) after the file name if you so choose.. but more importantly, you should then be dragging and dropping these files in the appropriate library, such as 'documents' or if it is a picture file, then move it to the pictures library, if it is a video file, move it to the video library.. I see many .pdf files so those would naturally move to the documents library... any zipped file (.zip) file is a compressed file that holds numerous files, so odds are you have already extracted this in which case a folder with the file name would also appear in the folder.. lets say you find a 'pictures.zip' file.. if you double click on this to open it, it will open in the Izarc zip program and you will then see the contents of the file. If you choose to EXTRACT IT, It will create a folder within the current place you are at (internet downloads library) and will have the folder name "pictures" and all the files within.. so you can now safely MOVE all of those pictures to the PICTURES library and then DELETE the original pictures.zip file
I know this sounds like a lot to do but the entire reason for the INTERNET DOWNLOADS library is so that you have a 'dumping ground' for anything that you do happen to click on to download to your computer.. therefore if this all sounds like too much work, you can always DELETE EVERYTHING within the INTERNET DOWNLOADS LIBRARY and simply re-download it again if you need it.. as in a lot of cases you may be visiting a website and click to view the file which first downloads to your computer before opening.. so once you have viewed it, you may not ever want to see it again, so it is safe to delete...
NOTE: Even though it is always safe to DELETE the files in the INTERNET DOWNLOADS LIBRARY because you can quite easily go back to the website and re-download the file, typically, however if you have allowed this folder to become rather large then you may find the files no longer available at various websites so be sure before deleting, especially if the file size is rather large.
Also note when I personally connect to a client computer, I will NEVER delete the files in the INTERNET DOWNLOADS library unless they are files/programs that I have personally downloaded to install to your computer. I will however, occasionally during my clean up, remove any obvious duplicates, especially if they are very large files.
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