Iphoto library trashed

Is there any way to recover my iphoto library if I "securely emptied" my trash with it in there?

Hate to be blunt but: no. And as you securely emptied the trash your chances of recovering the photos is pretty much zero as well.
Time to restore from your back up.
Regards
TD

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I did a bad thing: used Finder & accidentally put my iPhoto library trash

Thought I would use Finder to organize my iPhotos (used to using Explorer) as I was having trouble uploading pics to Snapfish. I deleted the library files and the .exl or some similar file extension that I obviously needed. I didn't empty trash so nothing permanently deleted, just all out of order now.
Dragged them all back out of the Trash and tried to put them back via Finder.. but I obviously don't have it right, bc when I open iPhoto all my keys, info and albums are gone and no pics are there. I confirmed via the Data files in Finder that the pics are still on the HD, but.. not sure how to "restore" my iPhoto. What should I do? (Besides read the manual before using?)
Goes without saying I'm a new mac user... now from perusing forums I know not to use Finder to organize iPhotos..promise. Can someone help? thanks

yara
Welcome to the Apple Discussions.
You're only choice is to create a new library and start over:
To create and populate a new library:
Note this will give you a working library with the same Rolls and pictures as before, however, you will lose your albums, keywords, modified versions, books, calendars etc.
Move the iPhoto Library to the desktop
Launch iPhoto. It will ask if you wish to create a new Library. Say Yes.
Go into the iPhoto Library on your desktop and find the Originals folder. From the Originals folder drag the individual Roll Folders to the iPhoto Window and it will recreate them in the new library.
When you're sure all is well you can delete the iPhoto Library on your desktop.
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.
Also FYI
There are many, many ways to access your files in iPhoto:
For 10.5 users: You can use any Open / Attach / Browse dialogue. On the left there's a Media heading, your pics can be accessed there. Apple-Click for selecting multiple pics.
To upload to a site that does not have an iPhoto Export Plug-in the recommended way is to Select the Pic in the iPhoto Window and go File -> Export and export the pic to the desktop, then upload from there. After the upload you can trash the pic on the desktop. It's only a copy and your original is safe in iPhoto.
This is also true for emailing with Web-based services. If you're using Gmail you can use THIS
If you use Apple's Mail, Entourage, AOL or Eudora you can email from within iPhoto.
If you use a Cocoa-based Browser such as Safari, you can drag the pics from the iPhoto Window to the Attach window in the browser.
Or, if you want to access the files with iPhoto not running, then create a Media Browser using Automator (takes about 10 seconds) or use THIS
Other options include:
1. *Drag and Drop*: Drag a photo from the iPhoto Window to the desktop, there iPhoto will make a full-sized copy of the pic.
2. *File -> Export*: Select the files in the iPhoto Window and go File -> Export. The dialogue will give you various options, including altering the format, naming the files and changing the size. Again, producing a copy.
3. *Show File*: Right- (or Control-) Click on a pic and in the resulting dialogue choose 'Show File'. A Finder window will pop open with the file already selected.
Regards
TD

How do I transfer iphoto library to external hard drive keeping events intact?

Had a one to one session but forgot how to do this. I would like to transfer my iphoto library to an external hard drive keeping the folders and events intact. I figured out how to send all my photos to the hard drive but they all transfer in single images, if that makes sense, and then i have to go thru all of the 15,000 images by hand and sort them into folders. Ahhhhhhh!
When they showed me how to do this at apple I am able to open my external hard drive and see a folder labled 'iphotolibrary" and I am able to click it open and then all my events show up just like in iphoto library.
Also does your iphoto library "Trash" take up space on your HD? Forgve me if thats a dumb question but I am kind of a computer "dummy".
thanks so much. My hard drive has VERY little space left on it so I need to transfer ASAP.

I just posted this to another topic, but it applies here as well. Hopefully there's no prohibition on cross-posting on this board, my apologies to all if there is:
"I haven't read the whole thread, so someone could have already mentioned this, but I did the same thing, move my music library to an external drive. The Help articles are helpful, but only up to a point. When that didn't work, I called up AppleCare support up, and they took me through all the standard steps, and got stumped at the same point I did. Finally she suggested trying something, and that ended up doing the trick. So here in brief is what you do:
1) Copy over your "iTunes Music" folder to the external hard drive
2) Go into Advanced preferences to have iTunes look for the "iTunes Music" folder in the new location. If you're like me, your music won't appear in the Library.
3) In iTunes, go to the Library window (which is probably blank), then in a Finder window, find the icon for the "iTunes Music" folder in the new location. Drag that icon onto the Library window.
You should now see a progress window pop up showing all the songs that it's populating the Library window with."
20" Intel iMac 14" iBook G4, 233 MHz Beige G3 Mac OS X (10.4.5)

IPhoto library Gone! (replaced in just one click w/o ever dragging 2 Trash)

iPhoto library gone / replaced in just one click (w/ o ever dragging anything to the trash)!
I currently own multiple PowerMacs all sharing the same high speed local network. All of them run the latest / Mac OS X.4.9 and have multiple HD’s (both internal and external) as well as iLife’ 06. And all of them also have iChatAV3 and are able to video chat one with the other at will while on the same local high speed network.
This is my very first iPhoto library nightmare since I’ve owned a mac. and yes I’ve always been conditioned to backup everything one wishes to keep. This particular scenario is no different. (altho my back up HD for one of the three G4 computers involved was a bit dated by at least 6 months).
This was essentially triggered via two separate iLife ‘06 apps , namely iPhoto and iChatAV3 (combined with at least an ounce of stupidity on my part). That combined with 2 people not communicating properly / being on the same page (or rather the same Folder) when working on the very same task. Hey... I do NOT claim to be an expert at this particular application even though I have used macs since apple first introduced the Apple IIe decades ago. So this does not stem from lack of experience but rather not thinking things thru entirely in terms of all the possible consequences of simple, yet catastrophic actions when it comes to replacing or authenticating one particular folder containing the entire iPhoto Library simply titled “pictures”.
Starts like this, ichatav is open on 2 of three macs and my teenage daughter asks me to send her a roll of pictures she downloaded into my computer (since it’s twice as fast as her own) from her digital still camera. Now she wants all 12 photos on her computer as well. So I drag all 12 photos to my desktop and place them in a folder titled “Jackies pics”. I drag this folder to her icon on my buddy list and ichat AV simply refuses to allow sending the entire folder and ask me to send them one at a time. That should have been my first clue. Strange I thought. Always worked well in the past. Why not now? So I tell her over ichatav that the app simply won’t allow me to send her the entire folder and that I’ll have to send them one at a time. Please make a new folder on your HD called Jackie’s pics. She agrees and creates a folder on her end called .... (you guessed it) ...... “pictures”...... to which she drags each of the 12 images I sent over our local network.
Little did she realize this newly created folder has the makings of an atomic bomb when it comes to importing the entire folder into iPhoto’s library on her own mac. A dialog box quickly materializes asking that she “authenticate” or hit cancel. So she ask me what to do. I said that’s fine, hit authenticate (assuming she titled it Jackies pics). BIG mistake! She hits authenticate and now she has the 12 images I sent her in iPhoto....BUT .... the 1600 or so originals in the entire iPhoto library quickly vanishes. Her entire iphoto library is now wiped out or rather replaced with this new folder. She asks me, what happened? And in less than 30 seconds she in complete tears. Over 2-3 years of her photos (all 1600 images) gone in the click of a mouse.
Today is father’s day .... and I remembered that I have a complete backup of her HD (even though it is a bit dated). So together, we managed to recover about 90% of the lost images. If anyone reading this knows how I can possibly recover the final 10% (most current photos) then please help us.
Bottom line: We were fortunate. This Father’s Day iPhoto Nightmare ended happily....
TIA
(3) G4 PM's/(3) S-Drives/Sony TRV900/Nikons/6FWHD's/PS7/iLife06/FCPHD/DVDSP/etc. Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Just another update .... Today, my daughter was multitasking on her G4 powermac working within iPhoto as well as email account and last but not least the latest iTunes. As she opened this final app (and I mean "final").... her entire hard drive bit the dust after she saw the spinning beachball and hence attempted to force quit. (I should also point out we are having a heat wave in San Diego today ...which also may have contributed to this hardware issue mainly).
This time, I had a complete updated copy of her HD and simply cloned it to a new hard drive. Took me a few hours to troubleshoot, clone and install a new drive in its place. But all is working normally again (sure hope it stays that way this time).
Friendly reminder to those who read this post .....
BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP .... ESPECIALLY IN IPHOTO & ITUNES!

I deleted unwanted photos from my iPhoto library, emptied iPhoto trash & Finder trash... this did not free up disk space. please help!

I deleted unwanted photos from my iPhoto library, emptied iPhoto trash & Finder trash... this did not free up disk space. please help!
I have a 15-inch MacBook Pro (Late 2011) with OS X Mavericks 10.9.5
Last week, my 500 GB Harddrive had 120 GB free space. I was feeling crumby and decided to make productive use of taking a day off to lounge around. I snuggled up with my laptop and dedicated hours to meticulously combing through my iPhoto Library. I had 13,000 pictures, and I got rid of those I didn't want. Having said "sayōnara" to about 6,500 pictures, I then emptied the iPhoto trash and the Finder trash. I took delight in the iconic paper crumpling sound of them vanishing into the digital void.
Everything seemed perfect: the photos I loved were still there, the photos I loathed were gone, both trashes were beautifully empty. Having thrown away all of those awful, boring, and unflattering images of poorly light lunches and selfies gone wrong, my iPhoto library was half the size as before! I felt renewed, a little lighter, somehow more free, and I expected my hard drive to be a bit different to.
I eagerly checked my storage stats. My heart sank to see that my 120 GB of free space, was still only 120 GB of free space. I restarted my MacBook; this did not help. I restarted it the next day; this also did not help. It's been 5 days and the hard drive still has 120 GB free space. This is not an emergency and it will probably be a good while before I clutter my laptop to the brim. Yet while I am glad I don't have to see cringeworthy pictures of my ex's unmentionables every time I'm showing off things I do want to remember, I'm still disappointed and now obsessed with solving this mystery.
What is going on? I don't see them, so where are they hiding? How do I get the free space I should have earned from throwing away 1,000's of photos?!

Thank you, Terence!
Yes, I only emptied the trash when it was really full, once I waited until the trash cans contained 2,600 photos and then I emptied them - Oooops! In the future, I'll keep in mind your suggestion of deleting less than 100 photos at a time.
I downloaded the iPhoto Library Manager and used it to rebuild my iPhoto. After a few hours of rebuilding, it generated a new copy of my iPhoto Library. This versions was nearly identical to the original (it was missing 5 photos and was therefore only 5 mb smaller). I guess my Library wasn't defective.
I checked my storage stats, and interestingly, using iPhoto Library Manager did help with the problem that developed after I re-indexed my hard drive. My hard drive is able to properly recognize data categories again, instead of listing almost everything as "Other". Understandably, my free disk space changed from 120 GB to about 60 GB, because my hard drive now contained a second copy of my iPhoto Library as well as iPhoto Library Manager. It seemed like all I needed to do was throw these away, but when I emptied the trash, my problem was not solved. My Hard drive now looked like this:
It appears to me that when I empty the trash, the things I throw away are just hanging around as backups instead of leaving! I went into System Preferences and turned of my time machine OFF. Now my hard drive looks likes this:
The back ups of the iPhoto files, and the program which I deleted, are still on my hard drive some where but now they are listed as "Other" instead of "Backups". Do you know where they might be and how I can delete them for good?

My daughter accidentally trashed all her photos. How do I return them to iPhoto Library?

MacBook OS X Leopard. Version 10.5.8.
iPhoto '09 version 8.1.2 (424)
My daughter was attempting to copy a few photos to a USB pen drive and ended up sending all photos as well as iPhoto to the trash.

If the photos were correctly deleted from iPhoto and the iPhoto Trash bin emptied the original photos get moved to the Trash bin in the dock. It sounds as if that's what happened. Each Event's photos will end up in a subfolder with the same name as the Event had:
Just select those folders and drag them into the open iPhoto library window to reimport into the library.. After the import is over and you're satisfied that all the photos are there and work as intended, i.e. be edited, used in projects, etc., you can empty the Trash bin in the dock.

IPHOTO LIBRARY FOUND IN TRASH. RESTORED AND ALL PICTURES GONE

I have iphoto 2011 installed on my imac. I had thousands of pictures installed and my imac is relatively new so I did not do a Time Machine backup or copy my photos. Unfortunately my iphoto library was in the trash and when I start iphoto it says 22 photos have been found in the iPhoto library that were not imported.Would you like to import them now? When I click yes it says: The photos have been placed in the folder /Users/USER/Pictures/iPhoto Library Recovered Photos_453.
I have a white page document on the desktop titled iphoto library (which I recovered from the trash) and when I click on this iphoto opens and starts to import and immediately iphoto stops running.
When I select the Macintosh HD hard drive and go to the USERS then PICTURES folder it shows 461 file items and they al say iphoto library revocered photos but when you click them they are empty.
When I select the iphoto library in the Pictures folder then select MASTERS folder it shows three photos in the entire 2011 folder.
Are my pictures just not being opened correctly by iphoto and they are somewhere else or did I lose them all but three? I have used 124.64 GB and have 875.22GB remaining.
Please help? IMAC 10.6.8

I am not 100% sure what you mean by the iPhoto window because there are a lot of iPhoto files. Which window (sorry there may be only one). If you tell what steps I can tell you exactly what's there. In the iPhoto page on the desktop thereaid a file and if I am not mistaken it says it is 4GB in size. I have no idea how my photos disappeared and how to get the iPhoto library back. When I click on the iPhoto library, iPhoto opens and then goes to force quit. All other folders (main) have files that say restored but they are empty when I click on them. I think the photos are still there because of the size of the file but I do not know how to get iPhoto to see them now. Im sorry I do not know more, I may have to take it to the Apple store to see if they can help because I'm pretty new to the MAC world.

How to restore accidently removed iPhoto library from Trash?

I have iPhoto Library Manager (version 3.5.5) and am employing it successfully with my iMac (OS X 10.5.8) to manage my iPhoto Library [iPhoto '09 version 8.1 (415)] which I have divided into 47 libraries at about 4 GB each.
This morning I accidently removed iPhoto Library #36 from my iPhoto Library list of 47 libraries! Ouch! Naturally I wish to restore it ASAP.
I opened up Trash and found iPhoto Library #36 in the SEARCH FOR/ Today folder. When I open it up it appears to be intact with all 756 photos present. However, I am not certain how to restore this library. When I perform a right click on the iPhoto Library #36 line item a menu pops up, but nowhere in the menu is a Restore option.
Can anybody advise me how to proceed to restore this library? I want to be sure that I do this correctly so as not to lose any of these images in the process.
Bob

Drag it from the trash to its proper location
LN

IPhoto Library accidentally put in the trash

My husband somehow accidentally put our iphoto library in the trash --don't ask, somehow it happened. The good news is that we haven't emptied the trash so the photos are still there, but I need to know where to move them. We had been getting this message: "Your iPhoto Library was not found. Do you want to find your library? iPhoto can't continue without Photo Library. Make sure disk containing your Photo Library is connected." It gave us the options of 'creating library', 'choosing library' or 'quit.' We just figured out that it was in the trash so now my question is where do we move the library to? I don't want to select 'choose library' and then have it retrieve from the trash since once day we will empty the trash. Where does the library belong? I'm not that computer savvy but I am a devoted iphoto user. Please let me know what's the best way to do this. Thank you very much.

hi flip,
Drag the entire iPhoto Library folder out of the trash and drag it in into your users Picture folder. Launch iPhoto and it should open the library just like nothing ever happened.
Lori

IPhoto library in the trash?

My iPhoto library is now in the trash can. When I try to copy from the trash can (3.3 Gigs) it tells me there is not enough storage capacity.

Don't copy use Put Back. Open the trach folder, select the library right click it and select Put Back

Emptying Trash for large iPhoto Library File on HDD not completing

I'm trying to delete an old iPhoto library (over 300GB) and it seems to hang when I try to empty the trash. This is on an external HDD. Any suggestions?

I will request that your query be relocated to the iPhoto forum where knowledgeable iPhoto users will be able to assist you.
Ciao.

I inadvertently trashed my Iphoto library. Can it be retrieved like in Windows, you just go to a prior saved recovery point? It wasn't securely trashed, just trashed.

I inadvertently trashed my Iphoto library. Can I retrieve it, like one can restore to an earlier time period on Windows? I trashed it but I did not use secure trash.

if you are running Time Machine - launch it and go back to the time you want, select the iPhoot library and click restore
Step 1 - launch Time Machine (either click on it in the DOCK or double click on it in the applications folder)
Step 2 - in the resulting window (which looks like a finder window) go back in time to when your iPhoto library had not been trashed
Step 3 - select the iPhoto library at that time (by default it is in your pictures folder)
Step 4 - Click on "RESTORE" and restore the iPhoto library from before it was trashed
Step 5 launch iPhoto (click on iPhoto in the DOCK or double click on it in the applications folder)
You do not copy or directly access the TM backup - as noted you use TM to restore the iPhoto library
Additionally, I would assume that I should start from scratch. Access and delete/trash all the pictures that I've since imported from a disk that I had save them too a year ago, in effect leave Iphoto empty before attempting any restore/import of the file, if possible. Yes?
No do not delete anything until this is all sorted out - and if you restore properly you certainly will not have to start over
LN

Can anybody help? Accidentally trashed iphoto library, emptied trash!

Can anybody help? Accidentally trashed iphoto library, emptied trash!

Obvious question I know, but do you have a back up?
There is no way to recover an intact iPhoto Library once it's deleted. The best you can hop for is togged bak the photos. Try a app like File Salvage - you can download a free trial and it will scan the disk for you and tell you with might be recoverable. Actual recovery will require that you purchase the app. There may be many files with the same or similar names. Always recover the largest file size.
There are other such apps. Search on Macupdate or the App Store

Yikes! I accidently trashed iphoto library

I see my iphoto library in the trash, and a bunch of my albums. I was cleaning stuff up and must have inadvertently done this. I'm trying to figure out the best way to get things back to normal. I dragged the library to my desktop, and it's copying it and says it'll take 4 hours. any thoughts?

I figured it out. Just moved it back to my external hard drive. No problem. When I dragged it to my desktop, it was trying to copy the entire library. Didn't want that.

Accidentally trashed iPhoto Library - how to remake

Hi,
I have a user who accidentally trashed her iPhoto Library and emptied the bin.
With the tool Photorec I am in the progress of finding all jpg on the disk system - it takes a lot of time and it is not finished yet. So far more that 85.000 files with the file type "jpg" has been found.
The good news is that a whole lot of deleted images from her iPhoto Library is showing up.
My question is: Since the iPhoto database consist of different sizes of the same picture I can see, from the files retrieved so far, that I will need some way to filter the original large jpg file from all the smaller dublets, face recognition files and other.
Any one know of a way to do this the easy way?
Best regards
Peter

My question is: Since the iPhoto database consist of different sizes of the same picture I can see, from the files retrieved so far, that I will need some way to filter the original large jpg file from all the smaller dublets, face recognition files and other.
Some duplicate detection applications can recognize duplicates in different sizes.
If Terence Devlin's recommendation of sorting according to size does not weed out all duplicates, you might try one of these helpers.
See Old Toad's list here: How to delete .jpg files

Iphoto library trashed

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