Just to make sure I wasn’t crazy, I pulled up an earlier backup of the nested folders and tried to delete everything by having 7-Zip archive and delete the top-level folder. No luck.

Then press enter to execute the command and remove the DS_Store file. After this is done, open the folder and use the view options (Command-J) to customize the folder view again.

Learn how to remove, clear, remove Recent Files and Folders Address bar auto-suggest history items from Explorer via Settings, Explorer Options, Registry, or freeware.