Deleted Complete iPhoto Library by mistake

HELP!!! I was trying to make more space on my Start up disk and I think I accidentally deleted my entire iPhoto Library because all my 2500+ pics are gone! Oh PLEASE tell me there is a way to get them back?

Now you need a recovery application like DiskWarrior. However, they are expensive and sometimes don't work, so I don't recommend you to use them.
The only way to recover your iPhoto library is to take the Mac to a company that recovers software, being this more expensive but with more possibilities of recovering the iPhoto library.
If you have a backup, you can restore the iPhoto library from it, but if you haven't got one, you should start making them in order to avoid this situation in the future

Similar Messages

I have deleted my iPhoto library by mistake. Is there any way to recover it? My trash has been deleted and it is not in there.

Help! I have deleted my iphoto library. Is there any way to recover it? It is not in my trash as I emptied that.

If you really moved it to the Trash and emptied the Trash, your best option is to restore the iPhoto library from your backup.
But if you did not actually trash the library and it is just missing, search for it with Find Any File as described by Old Toad in this post: Re: iPhoto Library is missing. What do I do?
If you don't have a backup and cannot find the library, you will need to buy recovery software to find the photos, but that will not restore the library.

Lost my complete iphoto library!!

Hi,
I have lost my complete iphoto library. I have just upgraded to OS X 10.8.2 from 10.5 and I did not back up previous to losing it. Is there anything tha I can do to retrieve it?

There are no guarantees.
You download the app and it will scan the disk for recoverable files. It will tell you what it thinks it can recover. Only then do you purchase, if you think it's worthwhile.
Given that the OS was upgraded from 10.5 to 10.8 there was a lot of writing to the disk in the process and the chancs of your deleted photos been overwritten is high.
Regards
TD

Can I safely delete my iPhoto library?

As the subject says, is it safe to delete my 1.69gb iPhoto library file? I have all my pictures in various folders elsewhere. So my question is, if I delete this, it won't delete any of my pictures in those other folders.
I assume that an iPhoto library file is basically imported pictures copied into a self-contained file.

Deleting the iPhoto Library will delete just that, and not affect files in other locations.
Regards
TD

I have deleted the iphoto library and lost my photo's......

i have deleted the iphoto library and cleared my trash and now all my photo's are gone. I have bought software to retrieve deleted data but not sure what file I am looking for. Can anybody help?

best solution is to restore yoru backup form before you made this error - that is the reason you must always have a good backup
If you don't you should start backing up immediately
to use the photos you recovered you look for photos (typically they have a .jpg or .jpeg extention to the name - and select the largest version of each photo and import it into iPhoto
Note that for not much more that the cost of the data recovery software you could have had an extrnal hard drive and been running TimeMachine so none of this would be required
LN

Hello, I own a macbook air and I deleted the iPhoto app by mistake, I cant re download it now, do you have any answer for me how to do it?

Hello, I own a macbook air and I deleted the iPhoto app by mistake, I cant re download it now, do you have any answer for me how to do it?

That's an App Store problem not an iPhoto one. That forum is here
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_app_store/using_mac_apple_store
but perhaps you just need to try again later, as the message says.
Regards
TD

Help! I cant delete a iphoto library I tried to copy earlier

Hi, I tried to copy an iphoto library to an external backup disk earlier (which was unsuccessful). I have since tried to delete the iphoto library from the external backup disk but receive an error message that the item cannot be deleted because "iphoto library is in use"?
Can anyone advise how can i proceed please, thanks!

Restart your Mac and try again
Regards
TD

Can I delete my iphoto library?

Folks, I upgraded from Iphoto to Aperture. Ive moved the Iphoto library to Aperture...can I safely delete the iphoto library now so as to save space on my hard disk? thank you.

As Kimmba alluded to it depends on how you imported the masters into Aperture.
When you run File->Import->iPhoto Library you are given a few choices of what to do with the masters. The most import option is Store Files:, this determines where the masters go.
If you chose In the Aperture Library then it should be safe to delete the iPhoto Library.
I always recommend to new users that they keep there iPhoto Library for some period of time after switching just to make sure everything went as expected. This way if you should need to, you could wipe the Aperture library and start from scratch (except of course for any new images imported only into Aperture). It's very rare that you get the desired Aperture structure right on the first attempt and while you could rearrange things in Aperture it sometimes is easier to just start over.
Of course it's always best to make a backup of the iPhoto Library and keep it safe before deleting it no matter what else you do.
regards

Can i delete my iPhoto library (since I have Photos)?

Now that I've upgraded to Photos, can I delete my iPhoto library in User/Pictures? With Photos, it created a parallel (same size) Photos library next to my iPhoto library. Not sure I want two of the same photos on my HD and backups (since the size is considerable). It made my SugarSync go over its limit, for instance. I know that keeping the iPhoto library enables me to click on it specifically and open up the photos in iPhoto (instead of Photos). If I delete my iPhoto library, just keeping my new Photos library with the same photos and movies, will it be detrimental in any way to my seeing the photos in Photos? Does Photos have any dependence on the iPhoto library, or is the iPhoto library just an archive at this point? Thank you!

With Photos, it created a parallel (same size) Photos library next to my iPhoto library.
The size you are seeing in the Finder is misleading. The new Photos Library and the iPhoto Library are sharing the image files and each photo is stored only one, see: Photos saves disk space by sharing images with your iPhoto or Aperture libraries - Apple Support
Also: http://sixcolors.com/post/2015/02/the-hard-link-between-photos-and-iphoto/
You could delete the iPhoto Library and the Photos library will continue to work, but deleting the iPhoto Library will not free much disk space, because of the hard links from Photos. I would wait a bit, before taking this step and deleting the iPhoto Library. Check your photos library thoroughly, before you delete if.
If you should discover later, that the migration of your libraries has been faulty and you need to repeat it after repairing your libraries, you will be out of luck.
Remember, it is is just a few days after the first release of Photos as version 1.0. There are very likely some bugs and I would not burn all bridges before the library has been thoroughly tested and you are very confident, that this early Photos release is working well on your Mac.

I deleted my Iphoto library and I want it back!

Yesterday, my computer sent me an advice telling that I should delete some itens from my Boot Disk, because it was almost full. So, I decided to clear my Trash, but (I don't know why and how) my iPhoto Library was inside it and it was gone forever with all my photos.
Well, I was calm because I thought I had it saved in my external HD, because of Time Machine (I have a MacBook Pro OS X Snow Leopard 10.6). So, when I went there, I've found all my other files, except my photos. The lastest Backup with my iPhoto complete was from August 2010.
I have tried to make Backups directly from the iPhoto and it didn't work out. Then, I tried to use the program "Find any file" and looked up for my iPhoto Library (Library6.iPhoto) and the only result was my empty iPhoto again. So I tried to make a backup of that old iTunes (August 2010) from my external HD, but, when I saw, it was also deleted because of a new actualization of my HD that occurred meanwhile.
What shoulsd I do to recover my iPhoto library from my External HD?
Is there any other way to recover also all my recent photos?
Please, help me! I am completely desperate!
Thanks,
Toni.

How are you looking for your iPhoto library backup? The way to do that with Time Machine is to launch TM and in the resulting window(looks like a finder window) going back to the time you want to restore, selecting the iPHoto library (it is a single entity - you can not restore pieces of it) and clicking restore
BUT
You must have aminimum of 10 GB of free space on your boot drive after restoring the iPhoto library - how much free space do you have?
LN

How do I delete my iPhoto library on my iPhone and just have photostream?

I have an iMac (main computer), MacBook Air and an iPhone. When I set up iCloud, somewhere along the way it synced my entire Macbook Air library onto my iPhone and I can't get rid of it. I like having photostream on all my devices as that's just 1000 photos, but my iPhoto library is huge and takes up all my storage on the iPhone.
How can I get my iphone to just have photostream and not my entire iPhoto library?
Thanks

This doesn't work. I unclick everything and it asks if I want to remove them from my iphone, I click yes obviously and then sync. Within a second it says it can't complete this because there isn't enough space on my phone. BS. After I unclick the library the memory bar shows I would have 35GB of space if it would only sync. what is the problem????????

If I use a backup machine that has a folder of my iphoto library, can I delete my Iphoto library without the machine updating and deleting the photos as well?

Hey everyone, I have a Lacie 1 TB back up machine that I use to backup every once in a while everything I have in my macbook pro.
I don't know if there's a difference between a hard disk in which you save whatever you want or a back up machine that backs up whatever you have in your computer once you connect it, so, My question is the following:
Having backed up my Iphoto (I checked if there's a folder in the machine with all my photos), can I now get rid of all my photos in the laptop so there's more space? If I delete my photos (in Iphoto), does the back up machine automatically update its folders and delete my saved iphoto contents as well?
Thank you!
I'm doing this because my laptop is running really slow lately and makes a lot of noise (like an airplane getting ready for take off) even though I've used it for a year.
I use a Macbook pro 15''
OS X Version 10.8.4
processor: 2.2 GHz intel core i7
Memory 8GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Startup disk : macintosh HD

Okay:
Except an arrow turning in circle near the ''wireless'' or ''sound'' symbols on the top of the screen. If I click on it, I see ''enter time machine'', ''back up now'', ''open time machine preferences''.
You're using Time Machine to back up to the External Disk.
Back to your first question:
Having backed up my Iphoto (I checked if there's a folder in the machine with all my photos), can I now get rid of all my photos in the laptop so there's more space?
No.
Time Machine keeps a rolling back up of your data. Eventually, anything you delete from your Mac will be deleted from iPhoto too.
If space is an issue then get another HD. They're not expensice and you can put your iPhoto Library on it.
Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
Regards
TD

Accidentally partially deleted wrong iphoto library, iphoto won't recognised external HD copy

Hello!
I'm trying to free up some space on my MacBook OS X 10.5.8. with only 9.27GB free space left. I work a lot with images/graphics.
As iphoto is the main space guzzler at 33.84GB, I was planning to move the iphoto library onto my external HD and access it from there. I now keep HD connected as my portable HD2 has started to develop problems.
First hiccup: when I copied iphoto library from Macbook to HD, an unreadable files alert popped up with 170 in the list. I did this the other day. I left it there to solve another day. Coming back to it today, I opened it up to test it and it seemed fine other than the alert popping up again. I was trying to work out what the files referred to (files ending in ....cache...ithmb) so I could identify the problem files but it's all just a bit beyond me.
I was going to just delete that version and go through the process again using the sound info on this forum but doh! I only went and trashed the main iphoto library didn't I? I'd already started emptying the trash when I realised so I stopped the deletion immediately.
When I view Show Package Contents I can see that the most recent original 2012 photos are gone but they are in the modified folder ( I have other copies saved so that's not a huge problem) but I can't really tell yet what's else further back might have been deleted. Anyway I thought that if I pointed iphoto to the copied library on my HD that would be fine but it won't open it. I can highlight it and click on OPEN but nothing happens. when I look at the Package Contents it only goes up to the Cache folder, no library or other images.
What can I do to clean up this mess, have iphoto on HD so my macbook can run smoothly again! NB with my most recent accidental deletion I now have 13.31GB free.
Baby steps help appreciated!!
Sacha

No, unfortunately. He has a 320gb HD and a 307gb library. However, that post reflects all of the symptoms we had. I'll check it out. Thank you!
If substituting "Old Masters" for "Masters" does not help, there is not much hope to fix this. The iPhoto Library First Aid Tools did not work in the previous similar cases.
The best option would be to restore the library from the most recent backup. Otherwise you can only copy the "Old Masters" out of the library and reimport them to iPhoto into a new library and essentially start over. IPhoto has no tools to connect missing original image files to the edited versions like Aperture has.

Deleted all iphoto Library

I have accidentally sent all my iPhoto Library to the trash and deleted it. Is there a way to recover the files knowing that I don't save on Time Machine? Help me please, I am desesperate?

If you have no back up at all?
File Salvage is an app that will scan the drive and tell you what files may be recoverable. Mind you, actual recovery will require a purchase.
Couple of notes: You will not recover the Library. Forget about that. The best you can hope for is to recover the individual photos and start over again. The scan may find many images with the same name. Ignore anything smaller than 500kb, that's likely to be only a thumbnail. Larger files are more likely to be the originals.
Regards
TD

Deleted my iphoto library,any chance of getting it back???? HELP!

I was fooling around making new icons for folders today, and somehow I made a copy of the "photos" folder on the HD. Of course the iphoto library in located there. Well, I thought I deleted the "extra" folder, and then went onward. Found out I deleted the "real" folder and I have no photos or iphoto library. Of course I emptied the trash (not secure empty though). Is there any chance I can recover my photos? Is there software out there that can recover them???
Help......!
G5 imac, 17 Rev A (new midplane , 5th gen ipod,macbook Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Steve:
I doubt it if you can regain the library as it was but there's a chance you can salvage the photos that were deleted. They will not be titled like they once were and in no particular order. Download and run SubrosaSoft FileSalvage in it's demo mode. It will indicate to you how many image files it will be able to save once you've paid for it. If is seems worthwhile purchase it, and run the salvage program.
You will keep a backup of the library in the future I hope.
Do you Twango?

Deleted Complete iPhoto Library by mistake

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