If I have a file in one place and it has a replicant in some other group/place, how do I delete it from the one place but leave it in the other?
Simply delete it.
If you instead want to trash all replicants press ⌥, the menu then changes to Move All Instances to Trash.
Oh. Thank you, but that’s weird. I deleted a replicant just now and it seemed that both instances were deleted. I must have made a mistake somewhere.
How did you do the deletion?
I just selected it, pressed the delete (backspace) key, and said OK to the default “Delete” selection in the resultant dialog box.
Can you reproduce the issue with another set of replicants?
No, I just tried with some test files, and it worked as expected and as described above.
I really don’t know what I did wrong.
I may have pressed command and option as I deleted, which, as I seem to see, deletes all instances.
Did you delete a search or smart group result?
No, it was an .RTF text file.
No, it was an .RTF text file.
But selected in a smart group or search results or just while browsing the item list?
No, it was just while browsing the item list. It must have been an error on my part, but thanks for reminding me of that possibility.
I know of a way to make this sort of appear to happen, but you have to be diligently mischievious.
Create a tag called anything. The only reason for this is so you can be current inside the tags.
Click on the tag you created, highlighting it. That makes you current in the tags group without being in a tag.
Create a file, which will appear in the tags group. This is not a best practice in DT. Don’t be that guy. Don’t do this, even if it works. The tags group is the only place you shouldn’t create a file. Nothing breaks, but confusion can be a factor.
The file will be created in the database’s inbox and will be in red italics in the tag and in the inbox. The info inspector will show both the tag and the replicant in the inbox will indeed be replicants.
Neither instance will have a tag, because the file appears in the tags group, not in a tag. It’s a file where the tags should be, not actually within a tag.
If you delete the instance in the tags group, the instance in the inbox becomes a non-replicant.
If you delete the instance in the inbox, both it and the instance inside tags disappear. Two entries appearing to be replicants deleted in one stroke with a normal delete, no option or command keys involved.
Curiously, if you are current within a tag (not just in the top of the tags group) and create a file it appears as a normal tagged file, not as a replicant. The file appears in two places, in the inbox and under the tag, just like a tagged file should.
The same delete rules apply. Delete from the tag, the copy in the inbox survives. Delete the real file in the inbox, the instance in the tag goes away too, which is how it should be.
The only time creating a single file results in a replicant pair is when you’ve highlighted a top level tag and create a file directly in the “tags” group.
This is so bizarre I wouldn’t even call it a bug. I have no idea why I bothered to post this. It’s not a glitch, it’s more like playing stupid games to win stupid prizes.
So, what’s my prize? 
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