iPhoto .data files why so massive?

[17luv]

I noticed on my MBP that suddenly 30gb had been used up mysteriously. I had imported a lot of images with a total library of close to 2k photos but no where near 47gb worth. I have three huge files in the iPhoto Library
all ThumbXXXSegment.data. Is there a way to make these files smaller without removing all my photos from iPhoto? And why are they so huge in the first place??? Thanks in advance !

 

[x86]

I took a stroll to the Apple discussion board and came up with this:


"Close iPhoto and move those three files to the Trash [The files below]. Now restart iPhoto. You'll be given a message that it's rebuilding the thumbnail caches. My test library files went from 176, 692 AND 348 kb to 176, 4 and 4 kb."

[thumb64segment.data]
[thumb32segment.data]
[thumbJPGsegment.data]

Its worth a shot, but I have never tried it. Worse case you can restore the deleted files if you run into trouble.

[edit] Here's the link.

 

[Applespider]

There was some discussion post- iPhoto 5 that the new Spotlight system when you imported photos into the iPhoto.data files didn't like certain cameras. Instead of adding a few bytes per picture, it added several K per picture which built up very quickly to very large files. Some of it was to do with Makernotes which certain camera manufacturers used. It basically meant that iPhoto would take much longer to start up and load the pictures.

One warning - if you decide to try anything to reduce the files, make sure you take a back up of the full iPhoto Library first to an external drive - just in case!

 

[17luv]

Thanks all! I rebooted and restarted iPhoto and as soon as it opened it gave me the option of rebuilding my thumbnail cache, which I did and I got 30 gb back. I am glad it worked it out on its own but wow that is a lot of memory to just go 'missing' especially when your system has less than 150 gb.

 

[JoanaGen]

Over 50 GB of iPhoto stuff in Invisible files

My 12"apple powerbook with Panther and iPhoto 6 with an 80GB harddrive was suddenly full. No one could solve the problem- I had a 120GB harddrive installed and then I compared everything between the two. The 120 had about 20 GB on it and the 80 had over 70GB in it but everything visible was identical! Then someone mentioned invisible files, which I had never heard of. I searched for them and discovered 3 of them on the new drive and 174 of them on the 80GB drive over 10000KB (there were many more smaller then that on the 80GB). These were all iPhoto related i.e. Name: Thumb64Segment.data, Parent: iPhoto library, 94.2 MB and then an exact duplicate to this) or (wedding.tif 24.1 MB with 4 exact duplicates). Other then checking for invisible files in the future what should I do?