Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

All iPhoto pictures missing!!!

T

TheSuperMom

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 3, 2011
10
0
I did a search for this and I can't find anything to help me.

When I opened iPhoto to upload a new photo it asked me if I wanted to upgrade the thumbnails. I hit "later." My new photo uploaded just fine.

When I went back to look ALL my other photos are GONE. I am freaking out right now. So many pictures from my daughters first 2 years of life were in there.

Well, I can find some pictures by typing in the folder names that I had labeled in iPhoto. I can only view them in preview and nothing else.

I've also done the rebuild by opening with option + command.

How can I fix this? Please tell me my photos aren't completely gone! :(
 
I did that. All I can find is the iPhoto logo to open it.

If I know the name of the folders that they were in I can get access to the pictures through preview but that's it.
 
If you can open the photos in Preview, then they're on your hard disk. You need to re-import them into iPhoto (to rebuild the iPhoto Library file), or restore your iPhoto Library file. So all is not lost. :cool:

Let me guess - you don't have a backup?
 
I don't. I've been looking into getting an external hard drive for all my photos. I'm a photography hobbyist so I have a bunch. Just haven't been able to afford it.

I tried to rebuild by opening with command + option. Is this not right? All it did when I did that was pull up the one photo that I just uploaded.

I have no idea how to import them all back to my library. I'm pretty computer illiterate as it is.
 
If you can find the picture files, just drag them into iPhoto. You can do whole folders, if that makes it easier. iPhoto should take care of the rest.
 
Your Photo's should still be in your iphoto library - you can find this in your pictures folder and it is called iPhoto Library. To see inside your Library right click on the iphoto Library and select 'show package contents'. You will then see a folder called Masters - where your original photo's are stored. Make a copy of this folder by pressing the alt key and dragging to the desktop. Please make sure that you copy the folder and don't move it! Then in iPhoto choose File >Import from the main menu and point to the copy of the masters library.
 
.. And please get a external backup hard disk - you can pick one up for between $50-70, and if you use time machine you can just plug in the external drive and OS X will automatically ask you if you want to create a time machine backup. While the external disk is connected it will automatically backup your hard drive every hour in the background. There are only 2 types of hard disk ones that have failed and ones that will fail at some point in the future!

Hope you manage to recover all of your photo's
 
How do I "right click" on a lap top?

I found what you are talking about though. When I just click on it, it opens my empty iPhoto.
 
Thanks! I found the originals folder. When I tried to copy it to the desktop it said "not enough free space."

Oh, and thanks so much for walking me through this!
 
Sounds like your hard disk is full (or you photo library is big). You can find out how much disk space the masters folder is by right clicking on the folder and choosing 'Get info' how much free space do you have on your hard disk?
 
The originals folder holds 23.86 GB

Not sure how much free space. How can I check that?
 
Well the good news at almost 24GB, your photo's are still there hopefully.

The amount of free space is shown at the very bottom of your finder window.

Or you can right click on the hard disk icon listed under devices in the finder window and choose 'get info' That will tell you capacity, available and used space.
 
Looks like you lost the link to your iPhoto Library. To link up again hold the Option key, NOT Option+command, while you open iPhoto and you can select your original library.
 
Pomeroy said:
Looks like you lost the link to your iPhoto Library. To link up again hold the Option key, NOT Option+command, while you open iPhoto and you can select your original library.
Click to expand...

I tried this too. It just opened my "messed up" library.
 
James Craner said:
Well the good news at almost 24GB, your photo's are still there hopefully.

The amount of free space is shown at the very bottom of your finder window.

Or you can right click on the hard disk icon listed under devices in the finder window and choose 'get info' That will tell you capacity, available and used space.
Click to expand...

Well, it only shows 3.02 GB available. So I'm going to guess that's why it didn't copy. Is there another way?
 
3GB left on your hard disk is a problem in itself. There is probably not enough space on your hard disk for the operating system to function effectively.

First, your Mac needs some free space for creating swap space to manage memory use. Even when you have adequate RAM, OS X will reserve some space at startup for memory swap space. In addition, individual applications usually use some disk space for temporary storage.

The point is that many pieces of the OS and many applications use hard drive space, usually without your being aware of it. When it gets your attention, it's usually because of erratic system performance.

While I am not saying that your iPhoto problem is because of lack of hard disk space, however it might have contributed to the corruption of the Library.

Ideally you want to have about 10GB of hard disk space free on your drive.

So first I would try and clear some space on your drive, take a look in your downloads folder, anything that you have downloaded and no longer need can either be deleted or copied onto a CD.

I think you will have to bite the bullet and go along to your nearest Best Buy or local discount computer supplies store and pick up a USB 2 external drive. You will firstly be able to copy the iPhoto Library file onto the external drive and then extract the masters folder.

Once you have copied the iPhoto Library folder onto an external drive, delete the original in your Pictures folder. When you next open iPhoto it will give you an option to create a new Library. It is clear that you have some corruption in your existing Library, so it might be better to start with a fresh one. You can then import your Photo's from the extracted masters folder you have on your external drive.

Once you have imported the photo's and checked that all your photo's are in iPhoto then delete the folders on the external drive (Copy of Library and the Masters folder), then you can use the external drive as your Time Machine backup.
 
When I say you can use the external hard disk for Time Machine backup's I am assuming that your are running Leopard or Snow Leopard version of OS X. If you are not sure right Click on the apple icon on the top toolbar and choose about this Mac. The version of the OS is listed Leopard is 10.5.x and Snow Leopard is 10.6.x. the value of x will change depending on the last update you have loaded as of the time of posting Snow Leopard is currently at 10.6.6.
 
A lot of that went over my head but thank you! I will give my husband the information. I think we are going to head to the apple store today as well.

Would this lack of space be the reason my "finder" becomes unresponsive almost always?
 
I am sure the Apple store will be able to help, good luck and post back how it goes, would be good to know that you got your photo's back.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back