Trouble with restoring an iPhoto library from a time machine backup.

I'm having trouble restoring my iPhoto library from a time machine backup.
I have created a new library in my pictures file.
When I try to restore the library the restore process is trying to copy it to an external drive that no longer exists - it failed and I had to have it recovered and all the recovery (including backups) data is now on a different external hard drive.
iPhoto had been using that old external drive location to start. iPhoto is now pointed to the newly created iPhoto library in my pictures file on my MacBook Air.
Is there a way to have the restoration process point to that new iPhoto library that is now empty and not to the old external drive?

You might try this with the restored library:
Starting over from scratch with new library
Start over with a new library and import the Originals (iPhoto 09 and earlier) or the Masters (iPhoto 11) folder from your original library as follows:
1. Open the library package like this.
2. Launch iPhoto with the Option key held down and, when asked, select the option to create a new library.
3. Drag the subfolders of the Originals (iPhoto 09 and earlier) or the Masters (iPhoto 11) folder from the open iPhoto Library package into the open iPhoto window a few at a time.
This will create a new library with the same Events (but not necessarily the same Event names) as the original library but will not keep the metadata, albums, books slideshows and other projects.
Note: your current library will be left untouched for further attempts at a fix if so desired.

Similar Messages

How do I Restore my iPhoto library from my time machine if it does not give me the restore option?

How do I Restore my iPhoto library from my time machine if it does not give me the restore option?
When I go into my backups and click on the iPhoto library it does not come up with an option to restore it just says open and of course then won't let me open it because it is a back up in time machine? I need these photo very important.

Mac Basics: Time Machine backs up your Mac - Apple Support
For detailes TM support post in the forum for your OS rather than the iphoto forum
LN

How do i import an iPhoto library from a time machine backup?

how do i import an iPhoto library from a time machine backup? I did a back up and i formatted my machine. How do i get iphoto to be the same?

This screenshot shows how to restore a library from Time Machine.
There is NO importing necessary. One should never import one library into another. Just restore it to your Pictures folder and launch iPhoto.
OT

HT4927 How do I restore my iPhoto library from a time machine back up of a macbook pro to an iMac?

My Macbook Pro is in a coma, but luckily I backed up on the 20th May. I managed to get my itunes library back on my new iMac; but cannot figure out how to do the same with iPhoto. Any ideas out there?
Thanks in advance!

Again - this is not the way to do this and generally does not work - you must use TimeMachine as designed - instructions link again http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427
Note especially
Restoring data from Time Machine backups
With Time Machine you can go "back in time" to restore files, versions of files, or your entire system. Make sure your backup drive is connected and mounted (if not, Time Machine will alert you that "Your Time Machine backup disk can't be found."
If prompted, enter an administrator name and password to proceed with the restore.
Restoring specific files or folders
Choose Enter Time Machine from the Time Machine menu and the restore interface appears. You can literally see your windows as they appeared "back in time."
You can use the timeline on the right side of the window to reach a certain point back in time (the timeline shows the times of all backups on your backup drive). If you don’t know exactly when you deleted or changed a file, you can use the back arrow to let Time Machine automatically travel through time to show you when that folder last changed.
Note: Dates in pink indicate the data resides on your Time Machine backup device. Dates in white indicate the data resides on your Mac. In OS X Mountain Lion and Lion, portable Macs have the feature of local snapshots. See thisarticle for details.
You can also perform a Spotlight search in the Time Machine Finder Window search field to find a file. Simply type the Spotlight search field and use the back arrow to have Time Machine search through your backups to find what you are looking for.
Before you restore a file, you can also use Quick Look to preview a file to make sure its the one you want. Highlight the file and press the Space Bar to bring up a quick look.
To restore, select the file/folder and click the "Restore" button. The file will automatically be copied to the desktop or appropriate folder. If the file you are restoring has another file in the same location with the same name, you will be prompted to choose which file to keep or keep both.
Restoring your entire system from a backup
If you are restoring a backup made by a Mac to the same Mac
With your backup drive connected, start up your Mac from the Recovery system (Command-R at startup) or Mac OS X v10.6 installation disc. Then use the "Restore From Time Machine Backup" utility.
Note: If "You can't restore this backup because it was created by a different model of Mac" appears when restoring a backup that was made on a different Mac, follow the onscreen instructions.
If you are restoring a backup made by one Mac to a completely different Mac
Important: If the backup you are about to restore is from a completely different Mac, use the Migration Assistant to transfer data from the backup, as described in the next section.
Migrating a Time Machine backup to a new Mac
When you buy a new Mac, you can transfer all of your applications, files, settings, and other information from a Time Machine backup you've already made.
You will be asked if you want to transfer files when you start up your new Mac for the first time. Or, you can use theMigration Assistant (located in Applications/Utilities).
After Migration Assistant completes the transfer and you select your existing Time Machine backup drive, you will be prompted with "Inherit Backup History". Once selected you will be able to continue to use your existing Time Machine backup on your new Mac.
And again for detailed TM answers go to the Time Machine forum
LN

Restoring a single iPhoto library from multiple Time Machine backups

My daughter traveled for six months in SE Asia with her MacBook Air with the Lion OS. She routinely deleted all iPhoto 11 content after backing up with Time Machine on a 1 TB external drive as the drive on her Mac reached capacity. My question: how can she create a single, complete iPhoto library on an external drive from these multiple backups?

Your daughter will have to restore the iPhoto Libraries by going back in time on Time Machine and extracting the different libraries at the points in time before they got erased.
iPhoto does not have a feature to merge these libraries. So she could either export the images from each library and then reimport those into one selected library or use the iPhoto Library Manager application to extract photos from one library and to import them into another. Using iPhoto Library Manager she could preserve keywords and captions, but this software is not free.
Next time your daughter should simply create her iPhoto Library on her external volume, so that she has enough space to collect all pictures in one library.
Regards
Léonie

The iPhoto library is a Time Machine backup, and so cannot be used as the main library. Reopen iPhoto with the Option key held down to choose another library.

I recently tried to look up my pictures on my time machine back up on an external hard drive. As soon as I try to open it I get the following message.
"The iPhoto library is a Time Machine backup, and so cannot be used as the main library. Reopen iPhoto with the Option key held down to choose another library."
I have tried holding down the option key but still couldn't few the photos.
I want to know if there is anyway I can actually view these photos. I have over 85gbs of photos on the hard drive. I have tried googling and looking at pervious forums with the same problem but nothing is working.
Please help!

Select Mac Help from the Finder's Help menu. Search for "Restore items backed up with Time Machine."

Restore an individual iphoto event from a time machine backup!

Can you restore an individual iphoto event from a time machine backup or do you have to restore an entire library?
Whilst deleting some old photos from my library i seem to have accidentally deleted an entire event of photos. I regularly backup my iMac using TIme Machine, so was hoping that i could restore this one event. Is this possible and if so how do you do it?
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

Greetings Martyn,
You can restore events from TimeMachine if you like. Read here.
Rather than clicking on individual pictures, you click on "Events", highlight the events you want, and then click restore.
Hope that helps.

Restore an individual iphoto event from a time machine backup in Lion

How can I restore an individual iphoto event from a time machine backup using Lion.
Thanks

If you know the file names of the photos you want to restore you can use Find Any File to search your Time Machine hard drive for that file. When it is found you can drag it from the search window to the Desktop and import into iPhoto from there.
Due to the nature of the Time Machine backup structure each search can take a while. The search results window will look like this:

IPhoto Library is a Time Machine backup

As of yesterday I am unable to open iPhoto and get the message ‘The iPhoto Library is a Time Machine backup, and so cannot be used as the main library. Relaunch iPhoto with <option> key held down to choose another library.’
This may have come about because I recently loaded some irreplaceable pictures on iPhoto and was trying to check that they had been backed up on my external (OneTouch 4) hard drive. I opened the hard drive and double-clicked on various files from the latest back-up. I wasn’t able to identify the photos for certain but assumed that they had been backed up OK. Anyway, I guess this procedure has given me the problem with iPhoto! I should also mention that, several months ago, I put a copy of the iPhoto application on my external hard drive thinking (no doubt wrongly) that it would enable me to view backed up photos. I have never used it but it is still there.
Doing a search for the latest photos shows that my photo library in general appears to be intact on my iMac (the path is -home folder-pictures-iPhoto library-originals-2010-event-individual photo) and each photo can be opened in Preview. But how do I get them back on iPhoto, please?

I have no idea -you tell us nothing except for the error
certainly selecting the correct library is critical - it is possible that that is your problem - it also is possible that something else is the problem - pointing to the correct library can not create any problems so do it
As to keeping all of your photos together - do nothing and iPhoto will do that - the only way anything else can happen is if you mess with the iPhoto library or create multiple libraries - iPhoto always uses the same library until you direct it to change
LN

How can I restore my EQ settings from a Time Machine backup?

I recently reinstalled Mavericks, and restored my user account from a Time Machine backup. In doing so I appeared to have 'lost' my personal EQ settings in iTunes, of which I had perfected quite a few to suit various headphones and speakers I've found myself using over the years.
I have a pre-reinstallation copy of the com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist file (found in /Users/username/Library/Preferences) that I believe contains my EQ settings; opening it in Textedit I can see references to the EQ settings I created.
Having tried restoring this particular file from Time Machine and restarting and finding iTunes doesn't recognise the [old] custom com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist file, does anyone know a way I can re-import my old EQ settings, or do I have to try and manually create them again? (gah)
Thanks for any light you can shed on this!

Enter your Time Machine backup (via the TM icon in the menu bar) and find this file
/Users/username/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iTunes.eq.plist
and hit Restore.
It didn't reflect in iTunes immediately, but after a restart it appears to read the new (old) plist file. You should have your old EQ settings back.
Let me know if it worked for you...

I restored a Macbook Pro from a Time Machine backup and now none of my passwords are working (and I know they are the correct passwords). What can I do?

I restored a Macbook Pro from a Time Machine backup and now none of my passwords are working (and I know they are the correct passwords). What can I do?

First, make sure caps lock is not on.
Another reason why the password might not be recognized is that the keyboard layout (input source) has been switched without your realizing it. You can select one of the available layouts by choosing from the flag menu in the upper right corner, if it's showing, or cycle through them by pressing the key combination command-space or command-option-space. See also this support article.
If the user account is associated with an Apple ID, and you know the Apple ID password, then maybe the Apple ID can be used to reset your user account password. In OS X 10.10 and later, this option also works with FileVault, but only if you enabled it when you activated FileVault. It's not retroactive. Otherwise, see below.
Note: If you've activated FileVault, this procedure doesn't apply. Follow instead these instructions.
Start up in Recovery mode. When the OS X Utilities window appears, select
Utilities ▹ Terminal
from the menu bar at the top of the screen—not from any of the items in the OS X Utilities window.
In the window that opens, type this:
resetp
Press the tab key. The partial command you typed will automatically be completed to this:
resetpassword
Press return. A Reset Password window opens. Close the Terminal window to get it out of the way.
Select the startup volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name) if not already selected. You won't be able to do this if FileVault is active.
Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.
Follow the prompts to reset the password. It's safest to choose a password that includes only the characters a-z, A-Z, and 0-9.
Select
 ▹ Restart
from the menu bar.
You should now be able to log in with the new password, but the Keychain will be reset (empty.) If you've forgotten the Keychain password (which is ordinarily the same as the login password), there's no way to recover it.

I accidentally deleted my media files from iTunes and Trash when I was trying to move the files to an external hard drive. Is there a way to restore the media files from a Time Machine backup or from iTunes Match? What are the steps to do this?

I accidentally deleted my media files from iTunes and Trash when I was trying to move the files to an external hard drive. Is there a way to restore the media files from a Time Machine backup or from iTunes Match? What are the steps to do this?

If you have been backing up on Timemachine.
All you need to do is enter time machine... Then the rest is obvious.
Find the iTunes folder and hit 'Restor'.
If not the only way to get all your iTunes music back is to enter iTunes Store.
On the right hand side you should see 'Purchased'.
Click 'purchased' and there you have it.

Any way to restore iTunes and iPhoto libraries from failed Time Machine backup?

Is there a way to restore iTunes and iPhoto libraries from an unmountable Time Machine backup?
Background: I received an update alert on my iMac (mid-2010, 1TB) from Time Machine (wirelessly connected to a Time Capsule, 2TB 2013) that it required an update and required rebooting, of course, it happened when I was in the middle of a project and I postponed the restart for later. That evening I turned off the computer and coincidentally the next morning, the iMac would not start; it loaded to the Apple logo and about an 1/8 of the progress bar would load before the iMac would turn off.
The iMac had been fine to that day (OS upgrades and all since 2010) so I was assuming something misfired when I declined the Time Machine update. I tried the PRAM and SMC resets mentioned in the forums but no dice. I then went into Disk Utility to try repairs and there were errors on the hard drive that could not be fixed. My next step was to erase the drive and restore from my Time Machine backup. Before doing that I checked Disk Utility and to my horror, it told me that my Time Machine backups were unmountable so of course my first thought was that all my files were gone.
The TC was under warranty so I called support and they referred me to the local Genius Bar. The Genius was great and showed me that my files weren't lost even though the Time Machine backup was unmountable. They recommended I erase the partitions, starting from scratch and I would have to transfer the Time Machine backup files manually by directly connecting an ethernet cable from the TC to the computer. If that didn't work, the hard drive was bad and needed replacement which they could take care of.
I followed their recommendation and the hard drive is fine. I was so relieved to hear that my files were safe that I forgot to ask about all of the metadata that was lost in iTunes (de-selected songs, playlists, rankings, play counts) and iPhoto (geotags, names, etc). Any ideas / help? I sank considerable time into my music and photos and would love to have that time back.
FWIW, I'm in the process of buying an external hard drive as a secondary backup to the TC as my confidence is a little shaken on the product line - the first time I ever actually need a backup and the backup is unmountable. My whole point of spending a little more and buying into the Apple ecosystem for a backup solution was to streamline the backup process and avoid these types of issues.

Thank you for the reply. I tried the Disk Utility to repair my TC's Time Machine backup disk with no luck, it stopped with the message:
Disk utility stopped repairing "iMac"
Disk Utility can't repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files.
It took a night but I was able to copy all the TC Time Machine files to the external hard drive as a backup to a backup just in case. I'm still pretty bummed the TC's backup didn't allow for Disk Utility's restore functionality. Fortunately, the iPhoto library backup I dragged to the iMac from the Time Capsule backup worked without a hitch. On the downside, the "iTunes Library.itl" backup I dragged over is locked so now I'm checking out the forums for any ways to fix that. I temporarily created a new iTunes library with all my apps and music but plan on reverting to the old iTunes library if possible so I can start syncing my iOS devices again.

How do I retrieve my iphoto library from the Time Machine back-up drive, when the original iphoto library was on a separate external hard drive that has crashed?

I recently backed up my iMAC and Simpletech external hard-drive to a 1 TB WD Passport external hard drive, using Time Machine's back-up utility. Today, I tried to access my iphoto library from the back-up drive, but received a message saying "the iPhoto library is a Time Machine back up, and so cannot be used as the main library. Relaunch iPHoto with options key held down to choose another library." Since my Simpletech died on me, what other iPhoto library is it expecting me to access? I know approximately 169 GB were backed up, and my iPhoto library is roughly 54 GB.
Angie in Charlotte

Thanks. I will try going through TM. Since my Simpletech is on the way out, I'll be plugging in a new external hard drive (other than the back-up drive) and trying to restore the library to the new drive. Any advice or warning if this is NOT the right thing to do?
Meanwhile, that is a great tip to do an alternate back-up using a different means. It's been tough to figure out how to "preserve access" to digital images and files for posterity, knowing the hardware will always fail/obsolesce sooner or later, and that "clouds" are only as good as their consistent and reliable accessibility. Upping the odds with redundancy will help dull the edge of my "access anxiety", though logically, it can never relieve it. Will look into
Carbon Copy Cloner.

IPhoto won't open. Says CAUTIONThe iPhoto library is a Time Machine backup, and so cannot be used as the main library. Reopen iPhoto with the Option key held down to choose another library.

I tries to verify that my photos were being backed up on Time Machine to an external harddrive, because I would like to delete my Camera Roll on my iPhone. I was not able to view any photos in my backed up photo library, after entering Time machine. Now, I can't even open iPhoto on my iMac with the pop up box warning me that the library is a Time machine backup....which it shouldn't be, because I'm openning iPhoto on my Mac...NOT the external HD.
What happened, and how do I access my photos?

It sounds like you went into the Time Machine hard drive, found a library and "dragged" it to your Pictures folder or wherever on your hard drive. That's not the way to do it.
Go to your Pictures folder and enter Time Machine via the TM menu in the menu bar:
Then follow the instructions in this screenshot:
OT

Trouble with restoring an iPhoto library from a time machine backup.

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