Big Sur made a duplicate of my previous hard drive

What you are seeing in Finder is not exactly reality, the Finder hides things.

Apple has evolved things to the point where there is a System Volume and a Data Volume. Which is like having two partitions where the primary operating system files are read only. This provides protection against malware and hackers because they can no longer modify critical parts of the operating system.

First Apple added System Integrity Protection (SIP), then they converted to the new APFS file system, then they added the split System / Data Volumes and made the System read only. In Big Sur they now take a snapshot of the System volume, sign and seal it then macOS actually boots off the snapshot. This makes it almost impossible to modify the critical system files.

The reason you are seeing duplicate items such as Applications has more to do with Finder displaying various shortcuts / aliases and the way the two volumes System & Data are displayed as one in Finder. There are firm links which are a new addition on top of hard links and symbolic links. A firm link points to folders on the other volume to make it look like it's one single volume without appearing to be a symbolic link nor alias. It looks just like a normal folder or directory but it's really going to the Data volume. In Finder if you look at /System/Applications you will see a shorter list of Applications that are pre-installed with macOS. When you look at /Applications you will see all the applications. The /System/Applications are read only and cannot be deleted. Built-in Apps like Mail, Photos, etc., etc., etc.

As a user, you should only concern yourself with /Applications and your user home folder. You should move the personal folders off /Volumes/Macintosh HD/ to your home folder /Users/<username> or /Users/Shared. Move everything except Applications/, Library/, System/, and Users/ to your home folder.

AgencySp...

all folders

archives...

CreativeCloud

desktop files

Q2020 Backup folder

Quicken...

Work Archived

Work in Progress

You should not put things in the root of Macintosh HD anymore. They appear there because they were there when you upgraded but normally users cannot put things in the root.

Susan A. wrote:

And while I'm giddy-happy to find all my Work in Progress files, I’m kinda at a loss and frankly scared about what to do with the rest of it. It’s a clone of what my hard drive, pre-Big Sur update, looked like. There’s even a “desktop files" folder that I made to dump all my desktop junk into right before I updated. The bad news is there’s an Applications, Library, System (with a Library inside) and Users folder (which strangely duplicates whatever file I copy to the new Big Sur top level Users folder). 

And, there’s yet another Applications folder in the Big Sur System folder with another set of only Apple apps (App Store, Books, Calendar etc. and Utilities).

Funny thing is, when I search for say, FaceTime I only find one copy which is the Big Sur first level Applications folder. The two other copies don’t show up at all. Weird right?

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/0aa9595b-b70a-4434-8633-d471e0add73f

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/c05da6f7-335a-4938-9934-fa980040ba95

On top of all this, after the Big Sur update an icon for my Time Capsule has mysteriously appeared on my desktop when there’s never been an icon. And I don't know if it should even be there. 

I welcome suggestions on what to do about these duplicate files and where to keep my working files. My instinct tells me to put them in my User folder but if/when I discard my old tied duplicate, what happens?

Full disclosure: Like my car, I only drive my MacBook Pro. I’m not expert on what goes on under the hood. So if possible, simple explanations please?

You really have no business in the Macintosh HD System folders.

You do not specify what macOS you were running before your " Big Sur update."

ref: About the read-only system volume in macOS Catalina - Apple ...

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210650


See Finder>Preferences>General>Desktop > if you do not want to see your TimeCapsule on the Desktop

then uncheck the box Hard Disk

From the Finder>Preferences>Sidebar

You can add to your "Favorites" these are all your user files in your User home folder where you have r/w permissions

SUSAN'sMacBook Pro>Users> this is the long way around.

Your home folder is already in the Sidebar:

What you are seeing is Finder file system illusions. Nothing is wrong.

You can mount a volume to any location in the file system, and you can mount it to multiple locations at the same time.

Finder will also just make believe something is where it isn't like in the case of the Desktop & Documents folders not being in your home but under iCloud Drive.

The startup drive is split into two separate volumes that appear to be one in Finder. The OS and all of the built-in applications are inside a System Volume which is mounted securely so nothing can alter it. Your data (and third-party apps) exist on a Data Volume which you see as merged with the System Volume.

I don't know why your Time Capsule suddenly showed up in Locations. You can remove it by dragging it out of the sidebar.