iPhotos wants to import nonexistent files

[TheTaz]

New to Mac, transferred photos from PC to Mac Mini by copying on a hard disk and importing. Import did not go easily but was able to get all photos into the Mac. then hooked up iPhone and imported some other photos.
Now whenever I start iPhoto I get a message "64 photos have been found in the iPhoto library that were not imported, would you like to import them" No matter whether I answer yes or no it creates a "recovered photos" file that is empty. When I tried to migrate the photos to my wife's new Mac Mini the photos ended up in "all images" not in the iphoto file. I was able to import them from there, but it lost all the identifying information. Am at wit's end.

 

[JamesMB]

New to Mac, transferred photos from PC to Mac Mini by copying on a hard disk and importing. Import did not go easily but was able to get all photos into the Mac. then hooked up iPhone and imported some other photos.
Now whenever I start iPhoto I get a message "64 photos have been found in the iPhoto library that were not imported, would you like to import them" No matter whether I answer yes or no it creates a "recovered photos" file that is empty. When I tried to migrate the photos to my wife's new Mac Mini the photos ended up in "all images" not in the iphoto file. I was able to import them from there, but it lost all the identifying information. Am at wit's end.

How many photos did you have in the camera roll of the iPhone?

 

[JediMeister]

I have seen this several times. Within your iPhoto Library package, there is an Auto Import or Import folder inside of which are probably non-picture files. To crack open the package and remove the offending files, navigate to ~/Pictures (the pictures folder in your user directory). At this point, first make sure that you do not have iPhoto open. Right/control-click on the iPhoto Library package, and choose Show Package Contents. Navigate to one or the other or both folders if necessary, and remove whatever is within there to the Desktop, and close out of the window, and relaunch iPhoto.

 

[TheTaz]

iPhoto issue

reply to JamesMB, there were 64 photos on the iPhone
reply to JediMeister, I followed your instructions and moved two folders, one titled Library.iPhoto, the other Library6.iPhoto to the desktop. restarted iPhoto and got the same response as before.

 

[JediMeister]

Yeah...you'll note that I didn't mention either of those two as things to be removed from the iPhoto Library. Only the contents of the Auto Import or Import folders should have been cleared. I'm not sure entirely as to the purpose of those two folders but you should return them to the package at the earliest to avoid damaging the library.

 

[TheTaz]

OK!! that did it. Thanks so much for the help.
I put the other two folders back and took out the folder in import. The folder I took out is called Masters. Also another item showed up on my desktop called iPhotoLock.data. Should I put the Masters folder and the iPhotoLock.data item in the trash?

 

[JediMeister]

The iPhotoLock.data is probably safe to Trash, I'm sure a new one has been created in the package. As for the Masters folder, you should open it up and see what's inside. If there are pictures, and these pictures are not already in the library, you should import them. If they aren't pictures, what they are will help you determine if they're worth saving or not.