Why are my folders behaving strangely?

[dogbone]

This has never happened before. I go to a folder that used to contain a compact group of objects and I find the folder is *gigantic* with a few items scattered around at the very edges.

It has caused a few panics when I don't notice the tiny blue scroll bar and I think some things have vanished.

Is there some sort of terminal command that will fix all the folders at once? ie make them just big enough to contain their contents?

[rdowns]

Have you tried the "Clean Up" up command under the View menu in the Finder?

[Unorthodox]

Or go to the Finders menu bar and select view>arrange by>name (or date or kind...)

[dogbone]

Yes I can do that but I have to do it on each folder. I was wondering what would have caused this to happen?

EDIT,
Oh I see I can apply it to all folders. duh... anyway I'm still wondering what cause it.