Imports photos not working correctly

@Photosbyme, you have given us a lot of information but I'm afraid the devil is in the details.  So, here is what I am gathering so far, and please correct me if I am wrong about your situation.

• You have a Windows computer and you store your photo files in folders dated by year.  The original photos were stored on an internal hard drive.  But you have now started using an external drive to store your photos - also in folders dated by year.
• You also use OneDrive to store your photos in the Cloud and presumably have a OneDrive folder on your internal hard drive that is used to synch with your photos on the web.  (It is unclear whether your original photos are stored under your OneDrive folder.)
• You have imported a number of files into the Organizer and they appeared in the correct folders.
• You are now importing new files presumably from a camera or phone, but they are being copied into folders which you claim are duplicates.  I take this to mean that they have been put into folders of the same name as other folders but are located in different drives or directories.  I am guessing that you are viewing the Organizer's Folder panel as a flat list rather than in a directory tree.  That is why you are seeing more than one folder with the same name e.g. 2021 Photos.
• You have been moving files around between folders.  I don't know whether you have been doing this using the Organizer's Folder panel or in Windows File Explorer.   Hopefully, it is the former, since the latter is just asking for trouble.
• You have a number of files that contain a -1 suffix.  It is unclear how this happened or on which drive or in which folder(s) they are located.  There are several possible causes.  First, the OS will not allow two files with the same name to coexist in the same storage folder.  Consequently, the name of the second file has to change.  If you tried to import a file from your camera to a folder where that file has already been copied, Elements will do as you commanded by saving the file to your computer hard drive but will automatically give it a -1 suffix to comply with the Windows OS rules.  (If you copy it again, the numeric suffix will increase.)  If you copy a file to its existing folder in File Explorer, the file will be renamed File Name Copy.  A second copy will be renamed File Name Copy(2).

@Photosbyme said: The problem comes when I try to move the photos to the original folder. (On the PC and in Elements, they are identified by folders for each year.) Photos remain ok in PSE.

Why are you moving files at all?

What do you consider the original folder to be?

And where are you moving the files from?

If the files are all in the Organizer, what is the problem?

@Photosbyme said:  Sometimes, the photos disappear from the PC (or external drive) folder. Sometimes, even from OneDrive, tho I found them there in the deleted folder. 

How have you determined that the files have disappeared from your computer?  Are you only looking at the Folder panel in the Organizer?  Or are you examining all of the folders where they should be?  The only way files will be deleted from your computer is if you delete them.  If they were deleted from your catalog while you were working in the Organizer, you would have been asked whether you want to delete the file from your hard drive. 

@Photosbyme said:  I can't delete (from PSE) and re-import because it says they are already there. 

What exactly have you tried to do?  It is possible to import a file copy that has a new name e.g. File Name and File Name-1 can both be copied into the catalog.  However, if you have the same exact file with the same name in two folders e.g.  C:\My Photos\2022\File 1 and C:\One Drive\2022\File 1, only the first to be imported will appear in the catalog.  The second file will be rejected because it already exists in the catalog.

So, let me make a few suggestions:

1.  Change the view of the Folder Panel to Tree View, by clicking on the hamburger icon next to the My Folder title and choosing View as Tree.

2.  Right-click on the root of each of your hard drives and choose Show all sub-folders from the context menu.  You will then be presented with the same folder hierarchy as you see in File Explorer.  If you right-click on an image in the catalog and select Go to Folder from the context menu, the folder containing that file will be selected.

3.  As Glenn has already stated, NEVER engage in file management of your photos outside of the Organizer.

4.  Decide where you are going to store your photo files and keep them there, preferably on a single drive within a main folder.  If you have sufficient room on your internal hard drive(s), store the photos there.  Then, use your external drive to make backups of your photos.

5.  If you are using OneDrive to only keep a backup in the Cloud, delete the OneDrive folder from the Watched Folder list (found under the File>Watched Folders dialog).  I suspect that some of your duplicate folders appear in your catalog because they have been imported via the watched folders.

Finally, I want you to be clear that Elements is only a database of the files that are imported into your catalog.   It does not copy your stored files to a new location unless you give the appropriate command to do so.

Only move things in organizer-  not maually move things around,   You manually move things and organizer won't be able to find them .