Lost Photo Library

This past week i went to check a photo and found my iphoto09 library gone.
I checked everywhere and over 5000 photos since kids were small are gone.
I looked at the iphoto09 application and it is showing a date of Apr7th, 2010, which i assume is the the last application update that did something. I was not
running time machine so there is no backup. I am running MAC OS 10.5.8 and
iphoto09 software 8.1.2(424). I saw some hints in the forum about holding the
command key when opening iphoto09 but could not find anything. I cant believe
an update on a MAC would wipe out a full Library. Can anyone assist and tell
me where it may be hidden? Looking for help.

tgw821 wrote:
TD,
Thanks found the library. Restored all photos. Thanks.
tw
TW, Glad to read you got everything back. So on a related side note, I bet spending that $50-$100 for an external hard drive to use for backing up your irreplaceable photos doesn't seem so bad now, does it?
First thing you should do now is get a back up solution of some sort in the works. Either backing up to DVD-R discs, an external drive hooked up as a Time Machine drive, or some other solution.
Good luck with the library,
Patrick

Similar Messages

  • Lost Photo Library - Apple TV

    Hi guys,
    while resizing the partition of my external HD, I lost the photos that were stored in my iPhoto library. I've scanned the HD several times with various data recovery programs and was able to find some, yet not all of the lost photos. I had given up, but then I saw that my apple tv screen saver was displaying all of the lost photos!
    Here's the deal: iTunes and iPhoto library were on the external HD. I resized the partition on the HD and thereby lost everything (I'm not very computer literate). I have the apple tv screen saver function set to the old and lost iPhoto library which can only be linked through the iTunes media library (which is also gone). Apple support says that apple tv is completely passive and therefore cannot store any data?
    Does anyone have an idea how to help me find this file or at least solve this mystery?
    I would really appreciate any help!
    Thanks

    Screensaver is just using a cache. There's no way to get anything back from there.
    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

  • How to recover a lost photo library on iPhone after ios 5?

    Hi guys,
    I know that there has been hundred of questions regarding lost photo's after installing ios 5 but I am struggling to find anything that relates to my situation.
    I installed ios 5 onto my iPhone 4 on saturday afternoon, but before I did this I backed it up. Everything seemed to work ok, I backed up to my mac rather than iCloud as I hadnt yet installed Lion.
    When I went to use my phone I noticed that everything was still there (apps, contacts, camera roll etc) except for another photo library that was in my photo app (the library was the photo's from my previous iPhone). I cant find these pics anywhere. I have tried using the back up twice but they still arent there!!
    does anyone have any idea of where they might be or have they been lost forever?
    any help would be greatly appreciated.
    many thanks

    The photo sync is one way - computer to iphone.
    You ould have to e-mail them to yourself.  When you sync photos to your iphone the current pics will be deleted.
    The iphone is not a storage device, it simply mirrors the selected content of your computer.

  • Help - Lost Photo Library

    I amnew to tall this and on the advice of a friend, I have just downloaded OS X Mavericks and my photo library has disappeared due to a different version being installed!  I am hoping that I have it backed up on icloud but unsure how to recover. Please help as I am desperate to recover photos.  Nicola 162

    Hi Nicola
    Firstly -Mavericks is very good and seems to work fine even on old Macs.
    Also it is good practice to run 'time machine' or in some way back up all your files before doing anything major like change the operating system. I realise this may be annoying info if it's too late for that.
    Is there an item in your pictures folder called iPhoto Library.photolibrary?
    If so right click and 'show package contents' to see all the photos.
    If this is not it - had you kept your library on a different drive or location to the default one?
    If so you can just locate it in the finder and double click to open it in iPhoto
    Hope this helps
    Chris

  • Lost photo library after upgrade to Lion -- please help me find it?

    I have just upgraded to Lion, and started setup for iCloud.
    I can't find my photo library on my Mac. 
    I tried upgrading to iPhoto 9.2, but the install didn't work -- got stuck on "searching for photos"
    The photos do appear in iPhoto, but not in the library?
    My backups on a separate hard disk may be ok, but I thought the library used to have the list of photos.  All I can see is the icon.  I hesitate to open anything, as I don't want to lose all of my photos....
    Please advise.

    The photos do appear in iPhoto, but not in the library?
    Please explain.  iPhoto displays photos from the iPhoto library - if you have photos in iPhoto then you have an iPhoto library
    Are you trying to access your photos? You do not do that directly into the iPhoto library - that has never been a support access method - you use the media browser
    What exactly are you trying to do?
    LN

  • Lost photo library after syncing atv

    i seem to have lost my iphoto library after syncing it to atv...after syncing, a "choose library" tab pops up with folders not related to my library...is this possible? or could i have deleted them accidentally?

    sounds like your iphoto library is not in you pictures folder - spotlight iPhoto Library and see where it is
    Once you find it quit iPhoto and restart with the option (alt) key depressed and use the select library option and point to its location
    LN

  • Iphoto 2 Lost Photo Library

    Help Please,
    The OS 10.3.9 has lost all of my Iphoto 2 library after the computer would not quit with Iphoto open. Instead a black window appeared stating that the computer should be restarted or the power button pressed. I pressed the power button and the computer closed down. Upon restarting the computer the Iphoto library had vanished.
    What to do?
    Thanks for the input

    Help Please,
    The OS 10.3.9 has lost all of my Iphoto 2 library after the computer would not quit with Iphoto open. Instead a black window appeared stating that the computer should be restarted or the power button pressed. I pressed the power button and the computer closed down. Upon restarting the computer the Iphoto library had vanished.
    What to do?
    Thanks for the input

  • My iPhoto won't open. It says "Your photo library is either in use by another application or no longer readable." Please tell me I haven't lost all my pics?! I do not have them backed up. I have tried restarting my mac. Please Help!

    My iPhoto won't open. It says "Your photo library is either in use by another application or no longer readable." Please tell me I haven't lost all my pics?! I do not have them backed up. I have tried restarting my mac. Please Help!

    What haven't you backed them up? You should always have a back up of any important material on your Mac. Make one now:
    Most Simple Back Up
    Drag the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to another Disk. This will make a copy on that disk.
    Slightly more complex:
    Use an app that will do incremental back ups. This is a very good way to work. The first time you run the back up the app will make a complete copy of the Library. Thereafter it will update the back up with the changes you have made. That makes subsequent back ups much faster. Many of these apps also have scheduling capabilities: So set it up and it will do the back up automatically. Examples of such apps: Chronosync or DejaVu . But are many others. Search on MacUpdate
    What version of iPhoto do you have?

  • Need to go into photo library to retrieve photos that technical support lost at the store.  Told to do "command Option" at the same time - than click on "I-photo"  then check the box "repair the i-photo library.... I have had two appointment at the store

    How can i retrieve my photo library that got lost by your techs at the apple store?

    First to locate your library on the hard drive launch iPhoto with the Option key held down so you get this window:
    Your library should be displayed in the window and it's location displayed below the window when clicked on.
    If that fails to locate your library download and run Find Any File to search for a file named "ThumbJPGSegment.data" which is a file common to all versions of iPhoto libraries.
    FAF can search areas that Spotlight can't like invisible folders, system folders and packages. If there's a library hiding somewhere on your hard drive FAF will find it.
    Once you find the library you can try to repair if it doesn't open as it should by trying this:
    1 - launch iPhoto with the Command+Option keys held down to open the First Aid window.
    2 - Run Option #4, Rebuild Database.
    OT

  • I lost my hard drive and want to recover photos from iphone photo library

    Hi all, can anyone help me i lost many photos but have some in my iphone photo library can i get these back?

    Greetings,
    See this post here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1472253?start=0&tstart=0
    Cheers.

  • Time Machine on my iMac won't open iPhoto. It goes to desktop screen automatically. When I select User/Picture/Iphoto library it only brings up the preview page with the size of the folder. I can't get into the library to look for lost photos.

    Time Machine on my iMac won't open iPhoto. It goes to desktop screen automatically. When I select User/Picture/Iphoto library it only brings up the preview page with the size of the folder. I can't get into the library to look for lost photos.

    Thank You. This helps me alot to get into the masters and to see events and photos in a utilitarian way, but it is not as easy as viewing the normal iphoto format to find photos.  Can I do something else or did I not do something right to not see normal iphoto in Time Machine ?

  • Hi, I just updated my mac from version10.6 to 10.9.3 os mavericks. i went to open iPhoto and it says "Your photo library will not be readable by previous versions of iPhoto after the upgrade." does this mean I have lost all photos i had in there?

    Hi, I just updated my mac from version10.6 to 10.9.3 os mavericks. i went to open iPhoto and it says "Your photo library will not be readable by previous versions of iPhoto after the upgrade." does this mean I have lost all photos i had in there? It does not give me a choice, it just says quit or upgrade? p.s. i didn't realise ther was  a way to back up my computer beforehand, which i am guessing this is time machine?

    1. No, you haven't.
    2. Back up the iPhoto library(this can be done through Time Machine or by dragging it to a drive, partition, or disk image formatted as Mac OS Extended) and then click Upgrade.
    3. Aside from Time Machine and drag-copying items from your home folder, programs such as the Disk Utility, Carbon Copy Cloner, and SuperDuper can make backups.
    (108026)

  • I lost entire photo library in iPhoto.  How do I retrieve the lost library?

    I went to open iPhoto only to find my entire photo library was gone.  I have no idea how this has happened.  I backed up my photos on an external hard drive but cannot access them that way.  I keep getting a message saying it's a backed up version and I have to hit "option" while I open iPhoto.  That is not working either.  How can I find these lost photos?

    I keep getting a message saying it's a backed up version and I have to hit "option" while I open iPhoto.
    What kind of backup of your library do you have?  If it is aTime Machine backup, see this document:
    iPhoto '11: Restoring from Time Machine with iPhoto '11 (9.2 or later) and OS X Lion 10.7.2 (or later) - Apple Support
    I went to open iPhoto only to find my entire photo library was gone.  I have no idea how this has happened.
    What did you do, before this happened?  Have you been updating or upgrading software?  Moved your iPhoto Library to a new location on external drives?
    Have there been crashes? which version of iPhoto or MacOS X do you have?

  • Hi - we have 'lost' photos in the iphoto library

    Hi - we have 'lost' photos in the iphoto library & relevant albums & slideshows frm 2009-2012; they are shown as empty. Older photos (pre 2009) were backed up & are all there in the library, album and slideshows although jumbled up in the library - this totals 1239 items, when there should be 10,000. We don't really know when this occurred - although photos from August 2011 were put on the computer around Xmas time - since that period this has occurred.  Also when we try to open a 'empty' slideshow, the iphoto application often automatically closes.
    OS is v10.4.11, iphoto v6.0.6.
    Only 3.5GB of 149GB is free on HD.
    Restarting didn't help.
    We have a LaCie external HD which we were going to use to do a backup and to transfer the Iphoto library across to, to then delete older photos in the main Mac HD and free up space; this is when we noticed the lost photos. We have not plugged in the external HD at all yet.
    Pls help. Thanks

    Hi Barry
    thanks for your response.
    After digging around the pictures folder on the mac HD I found all the rolls located under pictures/iphotolibrary/originals - here it appears all recent photos are present in folders by year, and can be viewed in preview as jpegs.
    Before trying a rebuild of the iphoto library - and viewing various related posts- I did a drag and drop of the entire pictures folder onto a external hard drive as a back up.
    I have now tried to do a rebuild with the original mac HD iphoto folder but it is still the same - only early pre 2009 photos shown.
    I have tried to create a new iphoto library using the external HD - When I try to create a new iphoto library from the external HD it only shows the same as the one currently on the mac HD however if go to next level down and I select the originals folder it appears that all 16000 photos are now being imported but none of the albums and slideshows are retained.
    Any further thoughts on this?
    Thanks

  • Lost photos after iPhoto library rebuild - what happened?

    After noticing that there were albums entitled Recovered photos in my iPhoto library, I deleted those albums. As expected, i got a message that i was not really deleting the originals, just getting rid of such albums. There were about 5 of those "recovered albums": one contained about 30 photos; three had zero and another had over 1000 photos. Subsequent to that, thinking of making this library totally clean, I decided to do a "libraty rebuild" using the option-command rebuild procedure of iphoto. I checked all the options presented for that procedure. To my surprise, when the process was finished I had less events, and less photos. A careful visual check of the display pane of events and photos confirmed that i had lost actual photos. I tried to reclaim those lost photos with another rebuild -- this time using iphoto library manager, but without success. What happened? Is there any way to reclaim those lost photos?
    I do have a backup, but would prefer to correct the problem in the original library to avoid having to assemble and clean up duplicates that i had before.
    I'm using the newest version of iPhoto: 8.1 and OS X 10.5.8 on a MacBook 2.4 Ghz - 2Gb Ram - 250 GB HD, 42 GB available. My iPhoto library has over 12000 photos

    Why these things happen is always difficult to answer. My experience with iPhoto is using it since v1 on with a single library that's upgraded each new versions and migrated from G4 iMac to G5 iMac to Intel iMac and then a second Intel iMac. I load photos in, my wife does and my 12 year old does too.
    And never had a problem.
    The database gets corrupted when the app is interrupted when writing to it. The usual causes of this include a crash, a force quit or a lost connection to the Library on an external disk. More rarely minor disk or directory damage might be a cause.
    I wondered when I read your report
    Subsequent to that, thinking of making this library totally clean, I decided to do a "libraty rebuild" using the option-command rebuild procedure of iphoto. I checked all the options presented for that procedure.
    The options presented for that procedure include various items that require the app to read the database file plus this one
    Rebuild iPhoto Library Database from automatic backup.
    +I Wonder+ - I stress, I wonder, no more - if reading to rebuild various thumbnails from a file that is being vacuumed +while at the same time+ is being replaced by a backup is what caused the issue.
    If it is, then the Rebuild from Back Up option should be sandboxed and not possible while the other events are going on.
    But that's just a guess.
    Regards
    TD

Maybe you are looking for