Missing albums/folder in iPhoto

Since updating to iPhoto 9.5.1 (and, or maybe to Mavericks 10.9.2) I have lost several stand alone albums and one folder that had about 20 albums in it. The photos are all in the Photos library and in Events but the albums and folder have gone. They are not in the trash, I did not delete them and I cannot restore from my back up on an external hard drive using Time Machine. It will take me days to recreate everything. What's the problem - suggestions welcome!

You best solution is to restore a backup copy of the library make just befire the problem occurred. Otherwise you're limited to trying the following:
1 - launch iPhoto with the Command+Option keys held down and rebuild the library.
2 - Run Option #3, Repair Database, followed by Option #4, Rebuild Database, if needed.
The fact that it's done it before indicates that it's probably an corrupt database.
OT

Similar Messages

Albums folder in iPhoto Library folder missing

The Albums folder in iPhoto Library folder missing. This means when I try to sync photos to my iPod (video) in iTunes, none of my photo albums show up (though I can seclect a specific folder useing year, month day, etc.). It also mens that I must navagate through the date folders to find photos when trying to attach them to e-mails.
I am running a G5 with the latest version of OSX, iPhoto, iTunes.
How do I recreat this folder?
Thankd for any help.
Cheers__ Heath

Hi Heath,
iPhoto 5 now stores the Album information in a data xml file. The Albums folder within the iPhoto Library folder is no longer used. At some point, usually after a rebuild, you will no longer have that folder in the Finder.
If you need to access photos from an album it is very difficult for a third party application to navigate the iPhoto Library in order to find the photo you need. You will have to know the date of import in order to find the photo.
There are some third party applications that can read the xml file and can navigate the iPhoto library and show you the Albums. Hopefully more applications will be revised to read this file.
Until then you will have to Share/Export the photos to the desktop. You can then navigate to the desktop to use the photos (example: web uploading from online photo site)
If your application supports drag and drop, you can drag the photo from an open iPhoto Library window into your application.
For email you can also use the email icon within iPhoto to open a message with the highlighted photo attached.
You can also use spotlight to find images in an Album...
This is what I have done using Spotlight to find my images that are in iPhoto albums without opening iPhoto..
In iPhoto, select the album, then select all, go to Photos/batch change.
Change the comments to text. In the text field I put the name of the Album.
Do this for each album.
Close iPhoto.
Open Spotlight and put in the name of the Album ( you have to remember the names of the albums or have then written down)
In the spotlight search results. click on "show all"
Under "Images" click on the "xx more" to show all the images in the album.
Make sure you have it in icon view, the icon view box is the last one on the blue images line.
Now you can control click on the image to "reveal in finder", open in iPhoto or Mail, etc.
I am not sure if this is going to make you happy and it is a little more work, but you can find images in albums and even view them in a slideshow (by clicking the play arrow at the end of the Images highlighted blue line) using Spotlight, all without opening iPhoto.
One important thing to know is you can set up a graphic program to be an external editor (when you double click an image in the library} such as PhotoShop or PS Elements. You set up that within iPhoto Preferences. Just make sure you save the image flattened and with the same name. The edits will then be relected in iPhoto when you hit "save".
Two Apple kbs for you to read
Don't tamper with files in the iPhoto library folder
About the iPhoto Library folder
Also, when you choose a folder to sync for your iPod, choose iPhoto in the drop down menu in iTunes, then choose the Album you want to sync. Do not choose a folder on your hard drive and then the Albums folder in the iPhoto Library folder.
Lori

MIssing Albums Folder from Finder window

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought under the "Pictures" folder there should be an "Album" Folder. This Album folder would contain all the albums created in iPhoto. Is this a correct assessment?
If so, I do not have an album folder. How can I get it back? Any help would be much appreciated. As my finder is now, there are some data files but all date folder organizing my photos but no albums.
Thanks
Mike

Hi Michael, as Alexander said, they are not more. And may I add, much to everyones dismay. I'll give you a little more info that might help you out.
iPhoto 5 now stores the Album information in a data xml file. The Albums folder within the iPhoto Library folder is no longer used. At some point, usually after a rebuild, you will no longer have that folder in the Finder.
If you need to access photos from an album it is very difficult for a third party application to navigate the iPhoto Library in order to find the photo you need. You will have to know the date of import in order to find the photo.
There are some third party applications that can read the xml file and can navigate the iPhoto library and show you the Albums. Hopefully more applications will be revised to read this file.
Until then you will have to Share/Export the photos to the desktop. You can then navigate to the desktop to use the photos (example: web uploading from online photo site)
If your application supports drag and drop, you can drag the photo from an open iPhoto Library window into your application.
For email you can also use the email icon within iPhoto to open a message with the highlighted photo attached.
You can also use spotlight to find images in an Album...
This is what I have done using Spotlight to find my images that are in iPhoto albums without opening iPhoto..
In iPhoto, select the album, then select all, go to Photos/batch change.
Change the comments to text. In the text field I put the name of the Album.
Do this for each album.
Close iPhoto.
Open Spotlight and put in the name of the Album ( you have to remember the names of the albums or have then written down)
In the spotlight search results. click on "show all"
Under "Images" click on the "xx more" to show all the images in the album.
Make sure you have it in icon view, the icon view box is the last one on the blue images line.
Now you can control click on the image to "reveal in finder", open in iPhoto or Mail, etc.
I am not sure if this is going to make you happy and it is a little more work, but you can find images in albums and even view them in a slideshow (by clicking the play arrow at the end of the Images highlighted blue line) using Spotlight, all without opening iPhoto.
One important thing to know is you can set up a graphic program to be an external editor (when you double click an image in the library} such as PhotoShop or PS Elements. You set up that within iPhoto Preferences. Just make sure you save the image flattened and with the same name. The edits will then be relected in iPhoto when you hit "save".
Two Apple kbs for you to read
Don't tamper with files in the iPhoto library folder
About the iPhoto Library folder

Missing album/folder frame

I've been using iPhoto 5 for some time and have never had this problem. I can see my film rolls in the library fine, all are intact, all folders on my computer are in the same location they've been for the last 2 years with no changes. However, I can no longer see my individual albums or folders! I see a small "dot" on the left edge of the window, but when I click on it, the frame does not open - I get a "modify width" cursor instead -- you know, the kind you can pull a column wider with in Excel, etc.
I tried making a new album from the menus, thinking that might force the frame to appear, but all it did was give me a blank window and I had to force it back to the main library in order to see any photos at all.
What's up with this? Is it some kind of weird incompatibility thing? Did I accidentally upgrade something else that's keeping this feature from working? How can I get it back???
The program works fine otherwise, but I wish I could see my folders again. The names of the albums/folders appear in a list if I go to the Preferences/Sharing, but I can't access them at all.

Hi klinqueen,
Sometimes people can't get that source window open, even when they try to move the dot to the right.
First try to drag the button to show the column as show here
If that doesn't work, then you need to delete the Preference file. That info (size of the source window) is kept in the iPhoto Preference file.
Quit iPhoto
Open your User folder, then open the Library in your user folder, then open the Preferences in the Library folder.
In the Preference folder is a file called com.apple.iPhoto.plist
For now, drag that file to the desktop. Launch iPhoto and see if the source window is there or if you can open the source window. If you can, that means that Preference file you dragged to the desktop was corrupt. Put it in the trash.
IPhoto made a new one when it was launched. Open iPhoto Preferences and set your preferences again and you are good to go.

Missing "Import" folder in iPhoto

A few weeks ago a pop up in iPhoto appeared saying "....photos have been found, import?" and I followed the steps through other posts to finding the import folder, moving it to desktop etc.
again this pop up is appearing except I can no longer find the import folder because I must have deleted it back when I did this the first time...
any suggestions?!
please help!

This procedure is a diagnostic test. It makes no changes to your data.
Please triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:
find Pi* -type d -name *Import -ls | pbcopy
Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.
Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
Paste into the Terminal window by pressing the key combination command-V. I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key after pasting.
Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign ($) to appear below what you entered.
The output of the command will be automatically copied to the Clipboard. If the command produced no output, the Clipboard will be empty. Paste into a reply to this message.
The Terminal window doesn't show the output. Please don't copy anything from there.
If any personal information appears in the output, anonymize before posting, but don’t remove the context.

Trying to restore photos from external drive and realized TimeMachine had been turned off. Found in Imac backup folder in iPhoto library a modified folder with many of the missing pics. Can I restore these?

I recently had a hard drive crash on my iMac. After replacing the drive, I discovered that TimeMachine had apparently been turned off for six months, and all my photos from that period were missing after the restore. In looking on the external drive used by TimeMachine, I discovered a folder called Imac backup, and under iPhoto Library was a folder called Originals and subfolders for each year. To my surprise, there were photos covering the missing time period! Somehow I imported the 2011 folder from the external drive into iPhoto, and then I discovered they were small files of less than 100 KB each, not the 1-2 MB original photos. So now all of 2011 is screwed up, not just from May on. These photos also include faces pulled from many larger group photos.
I can get Jan - April restored using TimeMachine. But in continuing to explore the Imac backup folder, I found a similar folder in iPhoto Library called Modified. This folder has many of the missing photos in their original MB size in folders indexed by date for the missing period after April. Is there a way that I can get these modified photos back onto my new hard drive and into the iPhoto library without causing more damage? If TimeMachine was turned off after April, how did those modified photos and all those small images from the missing period find their way to the external drive?
Any wisdom greatly appreciated.

What you want to do is merge the two Libraries? The only way to do this is to use the paid ($20) version of iPhoto Library Manager
I created a new iPhoto Library on the iMac and dragged the entire iPhoto Library from the MacBook into that new Library. It worked, however it all came over into one big album and my previous album structure was gone
Never import one Library to another. Every version and thumbnail is imported like a distinct photo, you lose all your Albums, Keywords etc., the link between Original and Previews is destroyed, the non-destructive editing feature is ruined and so on. In summary: it's mess.
Regards
TD

Sometimes after creating an event folder on iPhoto, all my pictures in that event will be gone the next time I open iPhoto. Why is this happening? Is there a way to retrieve the missing photos?

Sometimes after creating an event folder on iPhoto, all my pictures in that event will be gone the next time I open iPhoto. Why is this happening? Is there a way to retrieve the missing photos?
Most events I make on iphoto will still be there the next time I open iPhoto, while other event FOLDERS will be there, but pictures in it gone.

What version of iPhoto? Assuming 09 or later:
Option 1
Back Up and try rebuild the library: hold down the command and option (or alt) keys while launching iPhoto. Use the resulting dialogue to rebuild. Choose to Repair Database. If that doesn't help, then try again, this time using Rebuild Database.
If that fails:
Option 2
Download iPhoto Library Manager and use its rebuild function. (In early versions of Library Manager it's the File -> Rebuild command. In later versions it's under the Library menu.)
This will create an entirely new library. It will then copy (or try to) your photos and all the associated metadata and versions to this new Library, and arrange it as close as it can to what you had in the damaged Library. It does this based on information it finds in the iPhoto sharing mechanism - but that means that things not shared won't be there, so no slideshows, books or calendars, for instance - but it should get all your events, albums and keywords, faces and places back.
Because this process creates an entirely new library and leaves your old one untouched, it is non-destructive, and if you're not happy with the results you can simply return to your old one.
Regards
TD

2 things: iPhoto isn't automatically copying all my imported photos into an iPhoto album folder AND ever since i upgraded my MacBook 120GB to Snow Leopard, iTunes won't recognize my iPhone.

So i have a 120GB MacBook that's about 4 years old (just updated to Snow Leopard--been working in Iraq, i'm a little behind).
Never had a problem with it.
I also have an iPhone 4 which i've had for about a year (up-to-date software as of about a month ago).
Never had a problem with it.
I've had iTunes for years of course (up-to-date).
Never had a problem.
1.
Now my iTunes won't recognize my iPhone since the Snow Leopard update.
iPhoto will recognize my phone, but iTunes won't.
Went through all the preferrences and i can't find anything that isn't set properly.
iTunes Helper is used during startup.
Everything seems fine.
Any help?
2.
I use a WD external hard drive to back my Mac up every week or so.
I recently realized that half of my pictures from iPhoto are not copied to the external.
They haven't been transfering over.
So i snooped through my folders and as it turns out, iPhoto hasn't been copying the pictures i import from my iPhone to iPhoto and saving them as .jpg files in the pictures folder (or iPhoto album or whatever) like i think it's supposed to.
My pictures folder has approx half of all my pictures in it, meaning at some point (probably 2 years ago) iPhoto stopped making the file copies of my imported pictures.
I do not know why.
No idea how to fix it.
If i were able to fix that (with your help), would all the pictures that haven't been copied automatically copy to my pictures folder once i had the issue resolved or would there be a lot of dragging and dropping?
I've been clumsily and sloppily copying all my pictures to a new folder on my desktop and manually transferring that folder to a thumb drive (which i keep in my pocket) and my external (just so i have them in some form) in case my computer crashes or a mortar shell lands on my room and blows my computer up.
Can anyone please help me with any of this?
I can't just stoll down to the Apple store to ask the Genius Bar (I'm in Baghdad) and i don't have Apple Care so no one will help me on the phone when i call Apple.
Thanks so much.

hey mill1640,
Did you ever get your iPhone to register with iTunes? I just upgraded as well to Snow Leopard, and my my isn't recognized at all also.
If you did get this resolved, I would appreciate a little suggestion in the right direction.
Many thanks,
Josh

I have several albums in a folder in iphoto. The pictures are ordered, labeled, and dated. I want to put them on an external hard drive and have them stay in order w/labels. How can I do that? Thank You

I have several "albums" in a "folder "in iphoto. The pictures, and videos (from a camera and smart phone) are ordered, labeled, and dated. I want to put them on an external harddrive. How can I do that and keep them in order, etc. What I have tried reorders them, separates them into the camera pictures, phone pictures, and movies. We are not sauvy in Apple or iphoto so this has been extremely frustrating for us.

Files on disk have no order - they are given the order by the viewing program - finder on the Mac - using the finder you can view files by many different sorts - file name - date created - date moified - size - etc
Deciede how you are going to sort them when you view them and then export them so that sort works for you
Generally using an alpha sort to view and exporting using the sequential nameing option is the solution - see the user tip on exporting for the options available
LN

No Albums folder in Finder iphoto library?

I have just noticed that I cannot browse for pictures in iphoto 6 like I used to be able to in iphoto 4.
What I mean is, if I was writing an email, say, and then wanted to attach a photo, I could navigate to my iphoto library and choose the Albums folder, where I could easily find a particular photo to attach.
I see that in iphoto 6, there is no Albums folder listed when I go to browse. I have albums created, but the folder "Albums" is no longer there in the iphoto library folder in the Finder. This is a real problem. How does one go about browsing for a particular photo without openning iphoto and exporting it or writing the email directly from there? Is there a way to get the Albums folder to reappear in the iphoto library folder?

Hi john61254,
iPhoto 5/6 now stores the Album information in a data xml file. The Albums folder within the iPhoto Library folder is no longer used. At some point, usually after a rebuild, you will no longer have that folder in the Finder.
If you need to access photos from an album it is very difficult for a third party application to navigate the iPhoto Library in order to find the photo you need. You will have to know the date of import in order to find the photo.
There are some third party applications that can read the xml file and can navigate the iPhoto library and show you the Albums. Hopefully more applications will be revised to read this file.
Until then you will have to Share/Export the photos to the desktop. You can then navigate to the desktop to use the photos (example: web uploading from online photo site)
If your application supports drag and drop, you can drag the photo from an open iPhoto Library window into your application.
For email you can also use the email icon within iPhoto to open a message with the highlighted photo attached.
You can also use spotlight to find images in an Album...
This is what I have done using Spotlight to find my images that are in iPhoto albums without opening iPhoto..
In iPhoto, select the album, then select all, go to Photos/batch change.
Change the comments to text. In the text field I put the name of the Album.
Do this for each album.
Close iPhoto.
Open Spotlight and put in the name of the Album ( you have to remember the names of the albums or have then written down)
In the spotlight search results. click on "show all"
Under "Images" click on the "xx more" to show all the images in the album.
Make sure you have it in icon view, the icon view box is the last one on the blue images line.
Now you can control click on the image to "reveal in finder", open in iPhoto or Mail, etc.
I am not sure if this is going to make you happy and it is a little more work, but you can find images in albums and even view them in a slideshow (by clicking the play arrow at the end of the Images highlighted blue line) using Spotlight, all without opening iPhoto.
One important thing to know is you can set up a graphic program to be an external editor (when you double click an image in the library} such as PhotoShop or PS Elements. You set up that within iPhoto Preferences. Just make sure you save the image flattened and with the same name. The edits will then be relected in iPhoto when you hit "save".
New in iPhoto 6 is the organization in the Finder by rolls.
iPhoto 6 Library folder in the Finder
As you can see the structure is now related to rolls. Rolls are created for each folder you import and each import session from a camera.
It is very easy to change the names of film rolls within iPhoto to make them easier to find images within. Open the info panel in iPhoto by clicking on the "i" icon. Once it is opened, click on the roll title in the viewing window.
Click on the word "title" in the info pane and type in your new title. I like to use a date and text format such as 12/25/05 Christmas at Mom's, 1/05/06 my birthday, etc. Once the roll names are changed within iPhoto, they are also changed within the Finder, making it easy to locate an image.
When importing from a camera, make sure you name the roll with a date and text before the import.
Two Apple kbs for you to read
Don't tamper with files in the iPhoto library folder
About the iPhoto Library folder

Anyway to automatically relink random missing song files in iTunes library? Random songs have "!" while other songs in same album folder are fine.

I can manually relink a missing song by navigating to the album folder in my iTunes media folder where all of my music is stored, but there are hundreds of "missing" songs in my 100+ GB Library. Any way to get iTunes to reconcile the library in a more automated fashion? I am fearful of solutions that may introduce a ton of duplicates.
Would also like to know why this has happened so I can prevent it in future. Why are some songs in an album coming up missing and others in the same root folder playing fine?? It's not like my library is missing, 80% of my music is fine.
My MAC iTunes library is organized by iTunes and all new media is copied into the iTunes folder (which I have "living" on an external USB 500GB hard drive, which I sometimes use with my PC Laptop when I travel - I don't do this often and it has never caused a problem before.)

UPDATE: I contact the developer fo the iTunes Track CPR script just to give him some feedback. His reply, "
Thanks for letting me know. CPR needs a good looking at. But have you tried "Music Folder Files Not Added"?
http://dougscripts.com/466"
I used that script and it found all of the MIA "missing" songs and then added them back to my iTunes library (took about 7 hours to auto add about 2000+ songs.) This process also created duplicates, but I was able to use the "Manage Duplicates" feature of iTunes under the File menu to see a list of all duplicates; then I deleted all of the songs with the"!" next to their names (took about 45 minutes.)
So I think in the end this did save me a lot of time and aggrevation.
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction Chris!

Facebook albums missing after upgrade to iPhoto '11

I installed iPhoto '11 on my wife's iMac. She had probably 30 or more Facebook albums that showed up on the left side of the screen in iPhoto '09. After the upgrade there is just one icon that shows she has an account but none of her previous albums appear below it.
HERE'S THE PROBLEM: Now whenever she tries to upload photos to Facebook a message appears in iPhoto and asks to delete her albums off of Facebook. One message per album that formerly appeared in iPhoto '09. We accidentally deleted a few albums before I realized that it actually removes them from her Facebook page.
I can't find this problem in any other thread. Help! What can we do?

OK, I have had some success with resolving this particular problem.
*Step 1:* I quit out of iPhoto 11 and went to my FaceBook account. Under the Account tab, menu item account settings, you can change your password.
*Step 2:* After changing your FaceBook password, open iPhoto 11. Click on the FaceBook icon. You will get an error message, just cancel out of it.
*Step 3:* Delete every FaceBook album. (This may take a degree of faith ) Its not really deleting them from FaceBook as long as you are not connected to FaceBook from iPhoto.
*Step 4:* Open iPhoto preferences go to accounts and click on your facebook account. Enter your new password. This will reconnect you to Facebook. Your FaceBook photo albums will rebuild and download to your iPhoto program. Life will be cool again
This worked for me. Hopefully for you too.
Additionally if you wanted to try to change your FaceBook password back again I don't see why that wouldn't work as well. The important thing is deleting the current albums displayed in iPhoto without being connected to FaceBook.

HT1473 I am having to recreate my itunes library and do not understand why prior album artwork appeared in my older library but not the new library? Is there some way to scan itunes for missing album artwork?

I am having to recreate my itunes library and do not understand why prior album artwork appeared in my older library but not the new library? Is there some way to scan itunes for missing album artwork?

do you have a strongly recommended default "managed" library (the iPhoto preference to "copy imported items to the iPhoto library is in its checked state) or a referenced library - you have unchecked that option?
It sounds like you have a referenced library and are now experiancing one of the very siginificant drawbacks of a referenced library and one of the many reasons they are strongly not recommended
Also note that iPhoto '11 may use alises in the originals folder as part of the upgrade
It is important that we understand exactly what you have and what is not sorking - what error messages you are getting
You must NEVER make any changes of any sort to the structure of content of the iPhoto library - there are no user servicable parts in it -- and you can not rebuild yoru librtary - only iPhoto ir iPhoto Library Manager - http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/ - can rebuild a library unless you are a SQL programmer and understand the structure that iPhoto uses
LN

Problems dragging albums & folders in iPhoto

I've recently been having sporadic trouble moving albums & folders within iPhoto: when I drag the folder, it "sticks" -- it won't "let go" at the new location. Right-clicking the mouse doesn't have any effect. Sometimes I just have to shut down the computer or it stays "stuck" to my cursor.
I used the Disk Utility and got some "missing thread record" and "missing directory record" errors, which were reported to be repaired, but this didn't help the problem.
I have OS 10.6.3 and iPhoto 9, running on a Macbook Pro. Plenty of available disk space.
Suggestions?

Try trash the com.apple.iPhoto.plist file from the HD/Users/ Your Name / library / preferences folder. (Remember you'll need to reset your User options afterwards. These include minor settings like the window colour and so on. Note: If you've moved your library you'll need to point iPhoto at it again.)
*What's the plist file?*
For new users: Every application on your Mac has an accompanying plist file. It records certain User choices. For instance, in your favourite Word Processor it remembers your choice of Default Font, on your Web Browser is remembers things like your choice of Home Page. It even recalls what windows you had open last if your app allows you to pick up from where you left off last. The iPhoto plist file remembers things like the location of the Library, your choice of background colour, whether you are running a Referenced or Managed Library, what preferences you have for autosplitting events and so on. Trashing the plist file forces the app to generate a new one on the next launch, and this restores things to the Factory Defaults. Hence, if you've changed any of these things you'll need to reset them. If you haven't, then no bother. Trashing the plist file is Mac troubleshooting 101.
Regards
TD

How to take pix out of a slideshow and back into a simple folder in iPhoto?

I was only experimenting with slideshows and now have 61 photos in a slideshow which I want to revert back to a simple folder of pictures. I do not want those pictures in a slideshow.
How can I get all of the 62 pictures in that slideshow to revert back to 61 photos in a regular folder in iPhoto '08?
I guess I should have duplicated the folder of 61 photos before I made it into a slideshow. Then I could have just deleted the slideshow. Yes or no?
Lorna from Southern California
web.mac.com/lorna6

Lorna:
You can reduce the number of Events by creating Smart Albums with criteria that you would like to have the photos grouped by. If you'd like the events to be by year and month, set the smart album's criteria to be Date is in the Range 01/month/year to 30/month/year. Then select the contents of that SA and use the Events->Create Event menu item to create an event with those photos. Then change the date to the next month and do the same. You can use any criteria you want for the SA but Events are time based and work better that way.
P.S. are you in So Cal. permanently or just visiting. Wanna trade houses?
OT

Missing albums/folder in iPhoto

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for