Missing iPhoto library

I can't locate my original iPhoto library irrespective of everything I've tried. Any tips?

Download and run Find Any File to search for a file with "AlbumData.xml" in the file name. This 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.

Similar Messages

Missing iPhoto Library in Time Machine

I recently replaced my internal hard drive and am currently trying to locate the iPhoto library in my time machine so I can restore all the photos but it's no longer in the Pictures folder. How can I locate the library so I can restore it? I've tried to use Migration Assistant but it tries to restore my files from the LATEST backup, as opposed to one previous to that one. Help!

I have exactly the same problem: after restoring my user account from Time Machine, all of my photos for the last several months are gone. After several hours of investigation, I can only conclude that Time Machine was not backing up all data in my iPhoto Library.
Going through all of my backups for months, I've found that:
- the metadata for the photos still exists
- the actual files (in the iPhoto Library/Originals folder) do not exist in any backup.
I have no settings in Time Machine that would prevent these files from being backed up, but it appears that Time Machine (which has been enabled for the entire period) never backed them up.
I have no hope of recovering these photos (now missing photos from a wedding, a family reunion, and other important events). My only question is now whether I stay with Time Machine or not. It might be convenient to use, but if it doesn't work, it is worthless.

Full Hard Drive and Missing iPhoto Library

I have having serious problems with my iMac. I am running Mac OS X Version 10.5.8 and iPhoto '08 Version 7.1.5.
I recently began receiving a message stating that my start up disk was nearly full, so I began "cleaning up" my iPhoto. By cleaning I mean I was deleting specific events and single pictures from events. Once I finished I restarted my computer. When I returned to my computer I reviewed the trash bin to see if there was anything that I did not want to delete from the computer and emptied the trash. (Not the trash in iPhoto, but the trash on the desktop). After these actions, my iPhoto library was completely empty.
I downloaded iPhoto Library Manager and followed the steps found on the internet to rebuild my library, but was unsuccessful. None of the pictures selected would populate back into iPhoto. I tried several ways, but now I just have several new libraries that are also empty.
I have been able to locate a folder with all of my pictures by going to my HD-->Users-->Pictures_-->iPhoto Library--->Originals.
The "Pictures_" folder was somehow created during one of the attempts to rebuild the library and is not the default "Pictures" folder from the computer. iPhoto Library is an icon along side the other libraries I created, but I am assuming that this is the original library, now empty, although once I right click it and choose "Show Package Contents," a folder named "Originals" contains all of my "missing" photos broken down by year since 2000 to 2012.
I tried to rebuild the library once more to access this "Originals" folder, but I am unable to select the iPhoto library that contains the folder.
Now, I am no longer receiving messages stating my start up disk is full, but that my "Disk is full." It will not even allow me to open many Office or PDF documents that are saved on my computer or that I try to open via email or online. Sometimes it shows a message that the "Disk is full" or that it is in use by "Another User" and will allow me to open a read-only copy. Who is another user? Do I have a virus too? Have I been hacked?
I have since deleted any documents and photos that I could, but I hasn't changed my problems. I have also purchased a Western Digital for Mac 2TB External Hard Drive, but I am clueless as to what I am doing. I can find my documents on the hard drive, so I assume I have successfully backed my computer up to the external hard drive.
Please help!
Thank you!!!

I recommend you take a look at this freeware that it is very easy to use and it will show you exactly what is taking up your space.
Then you can choose to delete things if you see they are doubled.
http://www.id-design.com/software/whatsize/index.php
PS: Before you mess up with your home folder, be sure you have another account with admin rights so you can always login to your computer in the event of deleting the wrong things.

Missing iphoto library on time machine

I have just had to replace my hard drive as it stopped working. I've since uploaded my external back up hard drive to find all my files and my iphoto library is missing. Can anyone provide insight as to where this might be or does iphoto not back up

What system and iPhoto version are you running? With earlier versions of iPhoto the library, as TD pointed out, was not backed up if iPhoto was running. With 9.5.1 and Mavericks that doesn't seem to be the case.
OT

How do I find a missing iPhoto library on my MacBook Pro?

When my computer crashed, I bought a new laptop and was able to use data rescue 3 to recover my iPhoto library so on my new laptop I have the old one and also a new blank library where I don't store any photos. I know I should have backed all my photos up but I haven't and now I don't see the library with all my pictures anywhere on my computer. When I try to "switch library" it only shows the blank one. Is there a way to retrieve/find the library I am looking for?

and was able to use data rescue 3 to recover my iPhoto library so on my new laptop
I'm not sure that this is actually possible. Apps like Data Rescue are very good for recovering files, but and iPhoto Library isn't a file. It's a rather complex ecosystem of interlocking files, folders, databases and metadata. I believe that data recovery apps can recover the files, but not the ecosystem and after using such apps you need to make a new library and start over from scratch. Therefore, when recovering photos it's important to always choose the largest file size as that has the best chance of being the original file.
now I don't see the library with all my pictures anywhere on my computer.
Where are you looking? How?
When I try to "switch library" it only shows the blank one.
This would tend to support me belief, above.

Deleted or otherwise missing iPhoto library on upgrade from iPhoto05 to 08

I upgraded to iLife08 and upon launching iPhoto was informed that I didn't have an iPhoto library any longer. I was surprised to confirm this, along with all the photos which were in the library.
I checked the Library6.iPhoto file, but it seems it was overwritten in the upgrade. Are all those photos gone or should I be looking somewhere else?

gikitiki
Welcome to the Apple Discussions.
In your Pictures folder there is now an icon for your iPhoto Library. This is a Unix style package folder. Right click on it and select 'Show Package Contents'. Inside you should see the following:
Vvarious files, which are the Library itself and some ancillary files. Then you have three folders
Originals are the photos as they were downloaded from your camera or scanner.
(ii) Modified contains edited pics, shots that you have cropped, rotated or changed in any way.
This allows the Photos -> Revert to Original command - very useful if you don't like the changes you've made.
(iii) Data holds the thumbnails the the app needs to show you the photos in the iPhoto Window.
Can you confirm this is the case, and that your pics are there?
Regards
TD

Missing iphoto library - help !

Ok, long story short, I was changing permissions on my iphoto library (with the finder info window), and the iphoto library folder disappeared ! It is not visible with the finder - feel free to call me silly. When I checked the free space on my drive the iphoto library is still there, that is to say, the space is still being used.
I do have an online backup (I had a local, but that is another story), and can download if need be, but can anyone suggest how I could get my original back? Is there some super duper program on version tracker I can download and have it bring back my library in a few seconds?
Any advice much appreciated,
Thanks.

Thanks Matt,
I did what you said and found my library. Here is the list:
drwx------@ 9 ianbacon ianbacon 306 12 May 10:41 Aperture Library.aplibrary
dr-x------@ 24 ianbacon ianbacon 816 25 May 17:36 Ian
drwx------+ 30 ianbacon ianbacon 1020 20 Mar 22:52 OLYMPUS Studio 2
drwx------+ 5 ianbacon ianbacon 170 22 May 13:37 Photo Booth
lrwx--x--x 1 ian staff 47 26 May 14:22 iChat Icons -> /Library/Application Support/Apple/iChat Icons/
drwx------@ 17 ianbacon ianbacon 578 27 May 11:03 iPhoto Library
drwx------@ 44 ianbacon ianbacon 1496 25 May 16:24 iphone pics
drwx------@ 20 ianbacon ianbacon 680 25 May 17:02 test
Thanks again
Ian

Missing iPhoto library - replaced by MacFort with sparse bundle image

Hello to everyone!
I am new to the community and to Apple in General! Got my new Macbook Air abouth a month ago and one the first thing I did was to transfer all my pictures to iPhoto (about 18k or 55Gb). I sorted them in Events, Albums, etc - all cool. Then, I decided to password protect my iPhoto library using MacFort. I guess thhis was a big mistake from my part as I didn't really understand how this software really worked...
Anyway, here's what I did step by step and what was the rather unpleasant outcome:
1) Installed MacFort; found my iPhoto Library there and started encrypting it straight away
2) Once the encrypting was finished, iPhoto started to request a password everytime it was launched - so far so good
3) After the trial of MacFort expired I decided to uninstall the App. Stupid as I am, I did it with CleanApp and not using the uninstall option through MacFort
4) When decided to launch iPhoto it couldnt find any libraries as if none really existed before .. :X
5) I then restored MacFort as it was still in my Trash and tried to load the encrypted file.. Unfortunately the App doesn't find any files and I cannot decrypt the vault I had previously created for iPhoto...
- even worse: it doesn't find iPhoto nor its library when scanning for files to encrypt
- the only thing that MacFort recognises is the a vault which I can lock or unlock:
6) I then did some searches and found out that all my pictures (about 50gb) are considered as 'Other' storage (i.e. the sparse bundle disk image) and I have nothing considered as photos in Iphoto
7) Right then I found out that I approached the entire encrypting process in a very wrong way. I did not create a copy of my iPhoto library and then encrypt it but insted I worked directly on my original iPhoto library file.
Now I have a single file called Valentin.sparsebundle that contains my entire iPhoto library. I thought I had lost everything when mis-uninstalling MacFort but I can still access my photos when selecting the sparse bundle file when iPhoto asks to 'Choose Library'
So my question now is: Is there a way I can change this Sparse Image and return my original iPhoto library in order then to unistall MacFort and delete any encrypted disk images? In other words, put back everything the way it was before installing MacFort?
Sorry for the long post but I wanted to give you as much detail as possible. Any help will be greatly appreciated!
Many thanks,
Valentin

Not sure how I can do this.
So I can see the image file is located in Users->MacFort (again no storage allocated to Iphoto...) :
The file itself:
I can open my entire library and as you can see all of my pictures/events/albums are visible under Media in the open file command:
However in the Pictures folder there is barely anything:
I think the second file (45bytes) is only an alias(shortcut) to the sparsebundle image.
So in fact I can access my iPhoto library but it doesn't really exist :/

Has anyone found the solution to the missing iPhoto library event on iMovie'11?

Hi, I'm having problem of finding my iPhoto movies/events in iMovie'11. I recall seeing others had the same problem. Wondered if this matter is solved yet, perhaps I can use the solution

Welcome Annie!
This forum tends to be more about PowerBook hardware issues. I think you might get more hits and better help by posting in the Mac OS 10.4 Tiger forums here:
Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger
To target the Mail portion of that forum, click the "Refine this List" under the word "Discussions" in that forum to get this view:
and then click on "Mail and Address Book" to tag your post.
Allan

HT2638 Missing iPhoto library - now I have a new but empty one. Help please!

Holding down 'command' 'option' or 'command' 'O' doesn't work for me - I have iPhoto 11, is there another way to bring up the above repair/restore icon?

Well there's a story here
It looks like perhaps in attempts to remove files from my disk
What files did you remove?
maybe because I almost reached disk capacity it somehow crashed
This is very possible.
How big is your HD? How much free space on it now?

I have 2 iphoto libraries but one is lost, missing, cannot seem to find it... tried an apple care person - they were no help - we use Time Machine for external backup... but cannot find my older iPhoto library! I desperately need some help!

I have recently had something really odd happen within iphoto. My photos from May-Oct 2013 appeared to be missing from my primary Iphoto library.
last night I was trying to find any additional Iphoto libraries on my Imac... I could not find them... but then somehow the May-Oct 2013 library showed up and now I cannot find the "current" primary Iphoto library. I sought help from apple care today but no solutoin from them after 2 hours trying. I have timemachine that backs up my Imac each day to an external hard drive. When I open Iphoto while holding down the "option" key - it lets me choose which Iphoto library... but only (1) library comes up... I can't figure out what happened - but it seems that I must have more than one Iphoto library because yesterday I was able to see all my photos except the "gap in dates" from May-Oct 2013. Today - I can only open a Library called Iphoto2014... and it contains the photos from the gap in dates. I can't "see" any other options to open photos... but just yesterday there appeared to be a different library available.
Any advice or steps i should take to locate my missing photos - would be soooooo much appreciated.

I have recently had something really odd happen within iphoto. My photos from May-Oct 2013 appeared to be missing from my primary Iphoto library.
last night I was trying to find any additional Iphoto libraries on my Imac... I could not find them... but then somehow the May-Oct 2013 library showed up and now I cannot find the "current" primary Iphoto library. I sought help from apple care today but no solutoin from them after 2 hours trying. I have timemachine that backs up my Imac each day to an external hard drive. When I open Iphoto while holding down the "option" key - it lets me choose which Iphoto library... but only (1) library comes up... I can't figure out what happened - but it seems that I must have more than one Iphoto library because yesterday I was able to see all my photos except the "gap in dates" from May-Oct 2013. Today - I can only open a Library called Iphoto2014... and it contains the photos from the gap in dates. I can't "see" any other options to open photos... but just yesterday there appeared to be a different library available.
Any advice or steps i should take to locate my missing photos - would be soooooo much appreciated.

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

Time Machine backup missing bits of iPhoto library

I just noticed that the size of my iPhoto '09 library as seen in the Latest directory on the backup drive is a little smaller than the current size of my iPhoto library. The backup is up to date. I made sure by running Time Machine manually.
After some exploring I found whole directories within the iPhoto package structure that are just missing on the backup drive. For example, iPhoto Library / Modified / 2009 / Sep 26, 2009 is missing. I can't understand why. TM has run plenty of times since those photos were imported into iPhoto. I found other directories missing, too.
What's up with this? At this point I no longer trust Time Machine. If it's not backing up these directories what else is it not backing up?

Move/backup/move back/backup did not fix the problem. TM still didn't backup the missing directories.
I was finally able to convince TM to do the right thing by following the procedure described here:
http://www.nzmac.com/quick-tips/time-machine/how-do-i-reset-time-machine.html
This isn't a solution because I still don't know what caused TM to think that it backed up something that it didn't back up. But the article was suggested by a friend of mine in IT who also owns a few Macs. After following the procedure and running TM again I can see all of the previously missing files backed up on the ext drive. I also used BackupLoupe (http://www.soma-zone.com/BackupLoupe/) to browse the files that were actually copied by the last backup. I see that TM copied the directories that I knew were missing and two other directories that I did not know were missing.
At this point I think my TM backup is complete. But now I'm on the lookout for a better backup solution. Until I find it I'll need to periodically compare backup sizes to make sure that TM keeps doing its job.

After Mavericks reinstall, I copied iPhoto library over, but now photos missing? Where are they hiding or how do I recover them?

I was told by Genius?Bar to reinstall Mavericks and avoid using Migration Assistant, but rather manually copy over my data because of ongoing issues. I have a newer version of iPhoto now (9.5.1, not sure the previous version). I copied the iPhoto Library from the Pictures folder of my Time Machine backup. I want to keep all the folders, albums, keywords, etc. Now, several photos are missing and showing an exclamation mark, however the folders they were in are still there. I tried rebuilding the database and had no luck with that. I still have the Time Machine back up, but no idea where the missing photos are if they aren't in the iPhoto Library file. Most of the photos were imported from an iPhone and iPad, so not sure if there is a default location they would save to other than iPhoto Library? Any help is greatly appreciated.

but the Genius Bar guy specifically advised me to "drag and drop" my data
That will not work - TM backups MUST be restored - not copied - seehttp://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US andhttp://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html
There is nothing more to say - it will not work and you have proven that to yourself by doing it and having it not work
LN

ALL of my photos and my iPhoto library are missing!!!

Anytime I want to download photos (whether it is from an SSD card, iPhone or iPad) I simply plug in the device, wait for iPhoto to open, then choose the photos I want to upload. Today when I did so a message appeared saying "Which photo library do you want iPhoto to use?". The window options were blank! There were no libraries!!! I did a bit of research on the web and looked at quite a few other discussion threads. I cannot find my iPhoto library anywhere - under my user account, etc.
I have done nothing out of the ordinary lately. The last update to the system was May 22nd: OS X Mavericks 10.9.3 and iTunes 11.2.1
I don't have a back-up, because the 1TB external hard drive I have has other files on it, and I haven't wanted to erase them to use it for Time Machine. And I can't afford another external hard drive at the moment. I HAVE transferred about 60-70% of my photo library, but not all of it. Also, I downloaded iPhoto Library Manager as some of the other threads suggested. It found no other libraries to restore.
Can anyone tell me why my photos would have mysteriously disappeared in the past two days (my iMac is at work - a church where no one has been the past few days due to the holidays)? And where they might be?
This is serious!! (hundreds, if not thousands, of pics missing)
Thanks!

Give this fix a try:
Using iPhoto Library Manager to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
1 - download iPhoto Library Manager demo version and launch.>Click on the Add Library button,
2 - select the library you want to add from those in the selection window.
3 - now that the library is listed in the left hand pane of iPLM, click on your library and go to the Library ➙ Rebuild Library menu option
4 - in the next window name the new library and select the location you want it to be placed. Click on the Create button.
Note 1: This creates a new library based on the LIbraryData.xml file in the library and will recover Events, Albums, keywords, titles and comments. However, books, calendars, cards and slideshows will be lost.
Note 2: Your current library will be left untouched for further attempts at a fix if so desired.

Missing iPhoto library

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