Elements 2019 Restoring Catalog Caused Duplications

Unfortunately, there is no clear warning in the restore process about how the full path is restored.

In your case, if you want to update your media folder tree, the organizer expects you to select original location.

Otherwise, the original folder path: C:\Users\username\OneDrive\Pictures is duplicated as you have found.

The result is a path with 8 subfolders steps.

Let's assume you don't want to store your media files in the OneDrive folder: that's 3 steps:

C:\Users\username\Pictures

(It's 4 steps if you choose the OneDrive system folder.)

The Windows explorer displays the 'Pictures' folder as the first step, it's a shortcut. But in the catalog, the shortcut is ignored, so you have to see the full 4 steps path in the folders panel on the left side. If you restore your backup on a given destination folder, the four steps are added, even if the first three steps are empty since they don't contain pictures.

Many users also don't realize that the 'Pictures' level shown in the explorer is only a shortcut, and they falsely believe that their libraries are duplicated.

For this reason and a few others, I recommend NOT to store your media library in the Windows 'Pictures' folder, but on a custom master folder just under the root drive. Of course, it's best to create it just under the root drive of a different drive or partition rather than on your C: system drive. This makes the look of the folder tree much simpler and there is much less risks with backups and restores.

Generally, in a situation like yours, the solution is to delete the newly created duplicate tree from the explorer and to run the restore again to 'original location'. Even with using the OneDrive that should work, but the process could take time.

Side note: if you restore to a new drive and new master folder 'MyImages' just under E: you'll get the following tree hierarchy: E:\MyImages\Users\username\OneDrive\Pictures. The catalog folder will appear under 'MyImages with the name of the catalog. The OneDrive step will not be a synched system folder and the Pictures folder will not be a Microsoft system drive. In such a case, it would be recommended to drag and drop the full Pictures folder in the left folders panel directly to MyImages; then you could delete the intermediate Users, username and OneDrive empty folders.