IPhoto 06 - some photos in Library disappear usually 2 at a time, Help?

I have read the discussions, but found no problem just like mine, and those close are not answered. I have 533 in the one Library in iPhoto 06. When looking through Library I noticed two spots were just white squares. They will not open in any program, but Get Info reveals name, number of pixels, when taken, etc. Later while scrolling down in Library I actually saw two thumbnails go white. Again nothing would make them appear, but Get Info gave data. I am not renaming, adjusting or any thing else to these photos. I have lost about 10 so far. Most have been in iPhoto for the year or so I have had the machine. The lost pictures seem to be completely random. All are .jpg. Any help would be appreciated.

That did the trick - thanks. Before restoring I copied all the photos I'd added to iPhoto since the last good backup and then re-imported them once iPhoto was up and running again from the backed-up library.

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I recently migrated to a new mac. in iphoto, some photos have a small flag on the upper left of the photo. any idea what that is?

i recently migrated to a new mac. in iphoto, some photos have a small flag on the upper left of the photo. any idea what that is?

That's called Flagging. It's a way to make a quick selection of photos. For instance if you're looking for the best shot to print you might go through the photos and flag candidates for further inspection. Then clicking on the Flagged Section on the left, you can see these selected photos together. You can remove flags by clicking on them, if you mouse over a shot you'll see the option to add a flag by clicking. This can also be done in the Photos menu.

Some Photos in Library are not showing on iPhoto

I imported some photos from another Mac to my MacBook Air and organized them in several events. All went well until I had a large number of photos (and some videos) which took a long time to transfer and iPhoto was not responding for over an hour. I forced quit the iPhoto and now when I go back, I see the events that I had created but they are empty (photos are not showing). When I tried to re-import the photos, it says the photos are duplicate which I assume it means photos exist in the photo library. My question is how do I get the photos existing in the library to be visible on iPhoto. Thanks.

Back up your iPhoto library, Depress and hold the option (alt) and command keys and launch iPhoto - from the resulting first aid window repair permissions and if necessary rebuild your database
LN

Ibook G4 using iPhoto 5. Some photos in library cannot be opened. An error -couldn't open file. it may be corrupt or a file format that preview does not recognize. HELP!!

I have an ibook G4 using iphoto5. Some photos in my library cannot be opened. It hasn't always been this way. I have tried to click and drag to a folder in finder and when i do i get an error !Coundn't open the file. It may be corrupt or a file format that Preview doesn't recognize. Can anyone help in solving this problem?

The only solution to corrupted files is to restore from your back up.
Regards
TD

Please, please help! Photos in library disappearing before my eyes.

When I open up the iphoto library, my picture thumbnails disappear one after the next--from seemingly random places, though mostly on the right hand side)--before my eyes. My worry is that I am going to loose all my photos.
History: I have never had any problem with my iphoto program. I have never altered, moved, or renamed anything in the iPhoto library folder. I always work from within the program itself. A couple of days ago, I got a message saying I was running out of hard disk space and that I needed to eliminate some items in order to make more space. I clicked on the iPhoto trash and emptied about 2000 photos from it. After that when I scrolled in the library, the photos began to disappear and leave gray shapes with dotted outlines. No picture appears when they are clicked on.
I called the Apple Care support. The fellow I worked with suggested that I should try rebuilding iPhoto and sent me an article on how to do that. He also said that I will need to have as much free space on my hard disk as the size of the library is. The library is 16,000 MB. There are 6,000 MB still available to use. He said NOT to open up the iPhoto program until I had rebuilt the program and then he rang off.
I'm pretty innocent of how computers work and it wasn't until I realized that it's the photos and Quicktime movies from my camera themselves that are filling the disk space and that there isn't much else filling up the disk space (novels and poems and letters don't take up much space it turns out!) that I realized I am in a Catch-22 situation. How to eliminate things when I can't open the program for fear of losing all photos?
I have some but not all photos backed up on DVD. My husband has a selection on his computer but does not have the DVD burner capacity. He could burn the photos he has on a CD, but that would take forever. We do not own an external hard drive, but I am wondering whether I should see if I can find one--that's easier said than done since we live out on a headland in Ireland pretty far from everything. The closer Apple store in five hours away.
One other possibility I've come up with: we have an old PowerBookG4 which still has about 22,000 GB available on it. Could it be used in some way to hold the photos from my computer (The MacBook) as I try rebuilding the iPhoto program on my computer (the MacBook)? We have a firewire.
We are going to Paris next week, and I want to be able to take a ton of photos (my great joy!) without worrying that I'll have nowhere to put them. (Memory cards are expensive here.)
Any help would be very appreciated--thank you in advance. And I'd also be grateful if it were couched in the easiest to understand computer language possible (don't assume I know a whole lot.)
Josie

Josie
Welcome to the Apple Discussions.
1. Go to your Pictures Folder. In their is a folder called the iPhoto Library Folder. Inside it is a folder called Originals, and that contains Roll Folders. Your pics should be inside there.
That's: Pictures / iPhoto Library Folder / Originals / Rolls
So, first off, confirm that your photos are there.
2. Yes you do need to clear off disk space, and yes, your iPhoto files and any music you have a good candidates for moving to an external disk. You can purchase an external disk from the online apple Store (http//:www.apple.com/iestore is the Irish AppleStore) Look for the 'Storage' link on the left hand side. They'll ship it to you in three or four days (in my experience)
3. In the meantime, rebuilding your library will require disk space. It's not difficult, and doesn't take very long. If you have Firewire on the old Powerbook then here's what you do:
1. Turn Off the Old Powerbook. Connect it to the Macbook using a FireWire cable
2. Hold down the 'T' key and start the Powerbook. A Firewire symbol will appear on the screen, and the PB will turn up on your MacBook desktop, as an external disk.
3. Copy the iPhoto Library Folder (from your Pictures Folder) to the PB - just drag and drop it to the icon on the desktop.
4. Confirm that your Pictures have crossed over safely. Then double check. And then check again, because...
5. Put the iPhoto Library Folder in the Pictures Folder of the MacBook into the trash and empty it. (Note: Be sure that your pics are on the old Powerbook!!!) (We have to trash the iPhoto Library Folder from the MacBook to make space for the rebuild.)
6. Launch iPhoto on the Macbook. It will ask if you wish to create a new Library. Say Yes.
Go into the iPhoto Library Folder on the PB and find the Originals folder. From the Originals folder drag the individual rolls to the iPhoto Window and it will recreate them in the new library.
Note this will give you a working library with the same film rolls and pictures as before, however, you will lose your albums, keywords, books, calendars etc.
In the future, in addition to your usual back up routine, you might like to make a copy of the library6.iPhoto file whenever you have made changes to the library as protection against database corruption.
This should give you a working iPhoto Library on your Macbook.
But you still have a space problem, and you should deal with it as a priority. Once you have got an external disk, post back and we'll go through how to put your library on to it.
Greetings from sunny Clare.
Regards
TD

IPhoto 8 Photos Corrupted or Disappeared

Using iPhoto 7.0.2 (341) I've now had two separate iPhoto libraries where photos were either corrupted or lost.
In the first instance I noticed a problem trying to do a Retrospect Back-up and the procedure simply hung the program. Then when I tried to copy the whole library via the finder, the copy was interrupted with the message: "The Finder cannot complete the operation because some data in "IMG_0416.JPG" could not be read or written (Error code -36)"
When I went into the library and tried to export the picture via the file menu, I was unable to do so. When I dragged the photo to the desktop, it seemed to go across but when I opened it in preview it was a partial photo and garbage.
When I tried to duplicate the picture in iPhoto, I was unable to do so. I ascertained that there were close to 200 photos from several loads that I couldn't duplicate. This was from uploads back in March of this year.
In this instance, I did have a prior version of the library backed-up. I deleted the photos I couldn't duplicate and then imported versions from the prior back-up. It seemed to fix the problem, at this point.
In the second instance, a different library, the photos simply disappeared from two separate imports. For import #1 (about 30 photos), the thumbnails were still there but when I double-clicked on the thumbnail, I got a greyed-out image with a exclamation point. In import #2 (about 70 photos), there were no thumbnails visible, just a faint outline where the photo should have been. Double-clicking on the thumb-outline got the same greyed-out image. These were recent imports, 2 and 1 weeks ago.
In both instances, I had gone in and corrected many of the photos and deleted others -- the program seemed to be working just fine until the photos disappeared.
The photos were completely gone. Import #1 was available as a back-up. Import #2 is lost and gone.
Can any one tell me what's up here? I'm extremely nervous about using iPhoto at this point -- it seems that at any time my work could simply disappear. Can any one suggest what's wrong?

mbabc:
How much free space do you have on your boot drive? It's strongly recommended that you maintain a minimum of 10G free space, more if possible.
Try the following;
Move the existing library folder to the desktop.
Open the library package like this.
Launch iPhoto and, when asked, select the option to create a new library.
Drag the Originals folder from the iPhoto Library on the desktop into the open iPhoto window.
Now check to see if you have all your pictures and that they are useable. Once satisfied you can delete the old library folder/packages.
Do you Twango?
TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.
I've written an Automator workflow application (requires Tiger), iPhoto dB File Backup, that will copy the selected Library6.iPhoto file from your iPhoto Library folder to the Pictures folder, replacing any previous version of it. It's compatible with iPhoto 08 libraries. You can download it at Toad's Cellar. Be sure to read the Read Me pdf file.

How to find original iPhoto Album photos in Library (by Album content)

I have run out of Macbook space (OSX 10.7.5) and want to put all my photos on an external hard drive and share them between MacBook and iMac (no cloud please). I want to do this by "Album" name because that's how they are organized. I don't get the "events" thing in iPhoto, nor am I interested in the "Faces" stuff. Just simple file access is all I want.
QUESTION 1: How can I find the original photos after exporting by album? I want to delete these permanently from the Library -- from my MAC.
QUESTION 2: Is there a smarter way to get these photos onto my external drive than using "export?" And, is there a way to re-size a batch of files as opposed to one by one? I made all my camera photos the largest size possible, one reason I've run out of disk space. But to individually re-size would be impossible.
Note: I'm in a mess with photos. Have 20K on MacBook and about 25K on my iMac. There are 8 different iPhoto Libraries on my iMac, created by me in an effort to organize but I didn't know what I was doing and they are a total mess. My goal is to get them all into this hard drive from both computers then start all over again. But they need to be by album. I'm not an "Event" person -- doesn't make sense to me, so I've put all my photos in albums. When I start over I may not use iPhoto. Thinking of going back to Windows actually.

Sorry I'm terrible at explaining and even using my macbook haha. Let me try again. I imported some photos that I wanted to group together into an album. I forgot to create the album before importing a new set of photos which then took the place of the previous ones in the "last import" album. Is there anywhere or any way I can easily find the selection of photos I forgot to put into an album together without having to select them one by one from the "all photos" section? These would be the only pictures in my Photos application that haven't been organized into an album yet if that helps; however, these photos were not taken on the same date.

IPhoto: Restore photos to Library (help!) It's not working...

I have tried, unsuccessfully, several times to restore photos from my iPhoto Trash to the Library. I select the photos I want to restore, click on Restore to Library, and wait. The program invariably freezes, causing me to Force Quit. I need to restore these photos so I can empty the trash! Any ideas? Thanks in advance! I am using iPhoto '09.

Well you won't be syncing the two libraries as you don't want the same content in both, but only to update the one on the external, right? Otherwise you don't save any space...
Here's one way to do 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.
Now you have two full versions of the Library.
3. On the Internal library, trash the Events you don't want there
Now you have a full copy of the Library on the External and a smaller subset on the Internal
Some Notes:
As a general rule: when deleting photos do them in batches of about 100 at a time. iPhoto can baulk at trashing large numbers at one go.
You can choose which Library to open: Hold down the option (or alt) key key and launch iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library'
You can keep the Library on the external updated with new imports using iPhoto Library Manager
Library Manager means you can move additions on the internal, plus all metadata, version history and so on, to the main library.
Another thing to remember: now you have all your photos on this external, where's your back up? You'll need another copy of the Library on another disk...

IPhoto some photo's in my album seem to be locked for editing, how can I unlock them

I'm quite new to using iPhoto. Now I have created several albums that I would like to have printed. However, some photo's in these albums need some editting. Normally I click the photo (in the album) and the editing tools show up.
With some of the photo's in the albums this doesn't work. Can anyone tell me how to these "locked" photo's can be "unlocked"?
Thanks!

What do you see when you click on the Edit button? What makes you think the file is locked?
OT

Some photos load quick, others take a long time

I have about 4,000 photos in my library. When I click on some photos they goto the edit scren right away. Others take as long as 20 seconds to pull up. Any logical reason why?
Also, when I click to edit some photos, it takes me to the edit screen and shows a gray box in it's place. What happened to my photos that pull up like this?
Thanks.

Regarding the length of time for displaying do you have different formatted files in the library and could the slower ones be large files like tiffs or similar?
The gray box indicates that iPhoto has lost the link to that photo and thinks it's missing. There's a way to recover those files one by one. If there's only a few this might not be such a hardship. Here's how:
1 - find the "missing" file via the Finder in the Originals folder and copy it to the desktop.
2 - delete that photo from within iPhoto.
3 - import the duplicate file from the desktop.
If you have a lot of these then there's no easy way to recover them all without creating a new library and importing the Originals folder from the old one. That, of course, will lose your albums, books, comments, keywords* and other organizational efforts.
* If you find you must go that route and want to try to recover your keywords you can try the workflow in Tutorial #1 before starting the new library.
Do you Twango?
TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.
G5 Dual Core 2GHz, 2G RAM, 250G HD; G4 Dual 1Ghz, 1.5G RAM, 80G HD, Mac OS X (10.4.8) 22 LCD Display, 200G & 160G FW HDs, Canon S400, i850 & LIDE 50, Epson R200

I'm trying to find a way to move pictures from Preview to iPhoto. Tried "rebuilding library"...nothing happens. Help!

I'm trying to find a way to move pictures from Preview to iPhoto. Tried "rebuilding library"...nothing happens. Pictures ssomehow wound up in Preview after I needed to do a clean install (Snow Leopard) and moved files from an external drive. Help!

If you saw the images with Preview in the other iPhoto Library, than try to open iPhoto with that Library:
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH2505
If the Photos are there, replace the iPhoto Library in your Pictures folder with the one from the external. (posted by Keith)
My response:
The pictures don't appear in Preview in the other user account. They also don't appear in the external drive (!!!????). I discovered I can get the pictures into iPhoto by saving from Preview to the desktop, then importing into iPhoto, but only one at a time.
Clearly the files are on the hard drive somewhere, but where? The 'iPhoto library" icon that appears in my Pictures folder is a "package" which can't be opened on it's own....it's only able to be imported into Preview.
This feels like the Twilight Zone to me.....

In IPhoto '08, Photos under Library, I'm no longer able to view a screen of thumbnails. I'm only able to view a single photo at one time. This was not true in the past.

In IPhoto '08, in Library/Photos, I'm no longer able to view a screen of thumbnails. I'm only able to view a single photo at one time. This was not true in the past.

Note the slider lower right of the iPhoto Window. Drag it left.
Regards
TD

I imported 100 photos, when I was reading photos iphoto crushed, and when I restarted iphoto all photos imported had disappeared!Is there a way to find them. They were imported, they can not have disappeared from the hard disk?

I imported 100 photos from my camera (Canon) into iphoto. The importation went well, and when I was watching the photos, suddenly iphoto crashed. I restarted iphoto and realized that the photos had disapered. The events are availbble into iphoto but they are empty, the photos have dispeared. I can not believe they disapeared as they have been imported and read once, they must be hidden somewhere on the disk? Is there a way to find where they are?

Assuning you're running iPhoto 9 or later try the following:
1 - launch iPhoto with the Command+Option keys held down to open the First Aid window.
2 - Run Option #4, Rebuild Database.
OT

Library disappeared - I'm stuck - please help

We just moved so I unplugged my computer. I backed up files onto a portable hard drive.
After hooking up my computer at my new place, my itunes library is blank. I see 2 choices, but I'm afraid to press any buttons and wipe out the songs which are stored on my ipod.
1) Automatically sync songs to my ipod. It says it syncs ipod to mirror music library (which is blank) so I don't think I want that one.
2) Follow the new computer instructions - Drag itunes folder to itunes window?? Where is the itunes window? I've copied the files a few times (from external hard drive into itunes as well as file stored under my documents/my music (where I can see the songs I've purchased.)
I'm just stuck and worried I'll lose all the songs I've paid for. Can someone please help me?
Thanks!
Dianne

*After hooking up my computer at my new place, my itunes library is blank*
In addition to your back-up, are all your songs still in the usual folder(s) on your computer? Try holding down the Shift key in Windows when opening iTunes. In the resulting dialogue you will get the option to create a new library or navigate to an existing one. The default location for your iTunes library is in C:\Documents and Settings\Username\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\ (or C:\Username\Music\iTunes\ in Vista). Look in there and see if you have more than one library file (they have the extension .itl) If you have more than one try opening them in turn, you may find your original library is still intact: How to open an alternate iTunes Library file
*but I'm afraid to press any buttons and wipe out the songs which are stored on my ipod.*
If your iPod is set to update automatically you need to take care connecting to an empty iTunes. You can use a keyboard command to prevent your iPod auto-syncing with iTunes. While connecting the iPod to the computer on Windows with iTunes 7.3 or later installed hold down the Shift + Ctrl keys together. This will stop the iPod from auto-syncing with iTunes and the iPod will appear in the source list. Wait until you are sure the iPod has mounted, and that it will not auto sync and then you can let the keys go. This may take between 20 to 30 seconds depending on your computer: iTunes - Keyboard Shortcuts for Windows
When your iPod appears in the iTunes source list change the update setting to manual, that way you can continue to use your iPod without the risk of accidentally erasing it. Also when using most of the utilities listed below your iPod needs to be enabled for disc use, changing to manual update will do this by default: Managing content manually on iPod and iPhone
Once you are safely connected there are a few things you can do to restore your iTunes from the iPod. There are a number of third party utilities that you can use to retrieve music files and playlists from your iPod. I use Senuti but have a look at the web pages and documentation for the others too, you'll find that they have varying degrees of functionality and some will transfer movies, videos, photos and games as well. This is just a small selection of what's available, you can read reviews and comparisons of some of them here:
Wired News - Rescue Your Stranded Tunes
Comparison of iPod managers
Senuti Mac Only (Currently only the beta version is iPod Touch & iPhone compatible)
PodView Mac Only
PodWorks Mac Only
iPodDisk PPC Mac Only (experimental version available for Intel Macs)
TuneAid Mac only (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPodRip Mac & Windows
YamiPod Mac & Windows
Music Rescue Mac & Windows
iPod Music Liberator Mac & Windows
iGadget Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
Floola Mac & Windows
iRepo Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
iPod Access Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
TouchCopy Mac & Windows (iPhone and iPod Touch compatible)
If you have any iTunes Music Store purchases the transfer of purchased content only from the iPod to authorised computers was introduced with iTunes 7. You'll find details in this article: Copying iTunes Store purchases from your iPod or iPhone to a computer
There's also a manual method of copying songs from your iPod to a Mac or PC. The procedure is a bit involved and won't recover playlists but if you're interested it's available on page 2 at this link: Copying Content from your iPod to your Computer - The Definitive Guide
Keep your iPod in manual mode until you have reloaded your iTunes and you are happy with your playlists etc then it will be safe to return it auto-sync.

IMAC deleted all photos, itunes library, and other files! need help on how to recover lost files. everything else is working fine.

After installing the current update for the Mac I noticed that all my pictures, Itunes library and some apps and other files disapeared from the computer. Anyone know any voodoo to bring them back?

rccharles on file recovery...
"Stellar Phoenix Macintosh - Mac data recovery software, recovers data from damaged, deleted, or corrupted volumes and even from initialized disks."
They have a trial version, so I guess you can see if your data can be recovered...
http://www.stellarinfo.com/mac-data-recovery.htm
FileSalvage is an extremely powerful Macintosh application for exploring and recovering deleted files from a drive or volume. FileSalvage is designed to restore files that have:
    * been accidentally deleted.
    * become unreadable due to media faults.
    * been stored on a drive before it was re-initialized/formatted.
http://subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id= 1
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=11073082#11073082
Your best bet for repairing you HD is DiskWarrior from Alsoft...
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
If that shouldn't work, your best bet for recovering your data is Data Rescue II...
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php

IPhoto 06 - some photos in Library disappear usually 2 at a time, Help?

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