From fa096b9cc44c4e3f1c54337ae68bcc10ce153353 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: kai <kai.hackemesser@tewhatuora.govt.nz>
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2026 11:57:03 +1200
Subject: [PATCH] gui: stop pre-creating the download destination folder tree

RetroshareDirModel::downloadDirectory(), RsCollection::autoDownloadFiles()
and RsCollectionDialog::download() each mkpath() the full destination
directory tree the moment a directory/collection download is requested,
long before any file content arrives. RsDirUtil::moveFile() already
creates missing destination directories lazily when each file completes,
so this up-front creation only leaves empty folders sitting in the
download location for the whole duration of the transfer.

Drop the redundant mkpath() calls; the folder tree now materialises as
files actually finish.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0137V8RpdwiKisg9SSrMEiBt
---
 retroshare-gui/src/gui/RemoteDirModel.cpp            | 8 ++++----
 retroshare-gui/src/gui/common/RsCollection.cpp       | 6 +++---
 retroshare-gui/src/gui/common/RsCollectionDialog.cpp | 7 +++----
 3 files changed, 10 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-)

diff --git a/retroshare-gui/src/gui/RemoteDirModel.cpp b/retroshare-gui/src/gui/RemoteDirModel.cpp
index d14a843e5..ed82b92f9 100644
--- a/retroshare-gui/src/gui/RemoteDirModel.cpp
+++ b/retroshare-gui/src/gui/RemoteDirModel.cpp
@@ -1365,11 +1365,11 @@ void RetroshareDirModel::downloadDirectory(const DirDetails & dirDetails, int pr
 	}
 	else if (dirDetails.type & DIR_TYPE_DIR)
 	{
+		// No need to pre-create the destination folder here: each file's
+		// FileRequest() stages into the Partials directory, and
+		// RsDirUtil::moveFile() creates any missing destination directories
+		// lazily once that file actually completes.
 		std::list<DirStub>::const_iterator it;
-		QDir dwlDir(QString::fromUtf8(rsFiles->getDownloadDirectory().c_str()));
-		QString cleanPath = QDir::cleanPath(QString::fromUtf8(dirDetails.path.substr(prefixLen).c_str()));
-
-		if (!dwlDir.mkpath(cleanPath)) return;
 
         for(uint32_t i=0;i<dirDetails.children.size();++i)
 		{
diff --git a/retroshare-gui/src/gui/common/RsCollection.cpp b/retroshare-gui/src/gui/common/RsCollection.cpp
index 53422f8be..56a94d2ba 100644
--- a/retroshare-gui/src/gui/common/RsCollection.cpp
+++ b/retroshare-gui/src/gui/common/RsCollection.cpp
@@ -74,10 +74,10 @@ void RsCollection::autoDownloadFiles(ColFileInfo colFileInfo, QString dlDir) con
     if (!colFileInfo.filename_has_wrong_characters)
     {
         QString cleanPath = dlDir + colFileInfo.path ;
-        std::cout << "making directory " << cleanPath.toStdString() << std::endl;
 
-        if(!QDir(QApplication::applicationDirPath()).mkpath(cleanPath))
-            std::cerr << "Unable to make path: " + cleanPath.toStdString() << std::endl;
+        // No need to pre-create cleanPath here: FileRequest() stages into
+        // the Partials directory, and RsDirUtil::moveFile() creates any
+        // missing destination directories lazily once the file completes.
 
         if (colFileInfo.type==DIR_TYPE_FILE)
             rsFiles->FileRequest(colFileInfo.name.toUtf8().constData(),
diff --git a/retroshare-gui/src/gui/common/RsCollectionDialog.cpp b/retroshare-gui/src/gui/common/RsCollectionDialog.cpp
index 8352597b4..d626fbe0d 100644
--- a/retroshare-gui/src/gui/common/RsCollectionDialog.cpp
+++ b/retroshare-gui/src/gui/common/RsCollectionDialog.cpp
@@ -739,10 +739,9 @@ void RsCollectionDialog::download()
             const auto& sdd = mCollection->fileTree().directoryData(e.index);
             std::string subpath = RsDirUtil::makePath(path,sdd.name);
 
-            std::cerr << "Creating subdir " << sdd.name << " to directory " << path << std::endl;
-
-            if(!QDir(QApplication::applicationDirPath()).mkpath(QString::fromUtf8(subpath.c_str())))
-                QMessageBox::warning(NULL,tr("Unable to make path"),tr("Unable to make path:")+"<br>  "+QString::fromUtf8(subpath.c_str())) ;
+            // No need to pre-create subpath here: FileRequest() stages into
+            // the Partials directory, and RsDirUtil::moveFile() creates any
+            // missing destination directories lazily once a file completes.
 
             recursDL(dirdata.subdirs[i],subpath);
         }