Missing iPhoto pictures

Hello,
I had to do an Archive & Install of Mac OSX on my MBP Core2 Duo. My photo files are not being read in iPhoto after completing the install. I tried deleting the User/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iPhoto.plist to try to restore the photos, to no avail.
A new pref file is rebuilt each time iPhoto is launched but the structure of the data file must be damaged. The pictures and their file structure appears to be in tact.
My question is how can I rebuild the database and rescue all the files/pictures from 2003 to current in the iPhoto Library?

My photo files are not being read in iPhoto after completing the install.
What does happen?
how can I rebuild the database
back up your iPhoto library and Launch iPhoto while depressing the option (alt) and the command (apple) keys and use the resulting dialogue to rebuild your library - since You have not described the problem this may not be the answer - although it should not hurt
LN

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Entire iPhoto pictures missing from external hard drive.

Hello, I have already posted this problem but I'm not sure it was clear enough and not getting the response I needed. I had a Jan 2011 white laptop came with snow leopard, and I upgraded to Lion. A good few months ago, my daughter splashed a small amount of water on it, whilst it was turned on and open. I dried off the water I could see, and the mac was still working so I assumed it was ok. (At this time it had a very low battery and was not connected to a power source) Later on in the afternoon, forgetting about the incident, I did the unthinkable and plugged in the power lead. Result: nothing, the laptop would not boot up, I tried a few times, even holding down the power key for extended time but nothing. I eventually gave up and got myself a new macbook 10.9.2 then two days ago, took the old burnt out laptop to a place to get them to remove the hard drive and fit it in a case for me with a usb connection. They done this, I got home and connected the external hard drive off my old mac into my new mac, success I could see it but when I tried launching I photo from the external HD (old lap top) on my new mac. (I didn't realise there would be a software issue which is obvious now)The new mac with mavericks said it could not open iphoto. So I tried searching for the photo files manually on my external hard drive (but there was nothing) The user files were completely empty. It showed hardly any bytes (indicating I had nothing) My itunes files where gone too, and I could find no files I needed that were originally on my old (mac/ now external harddrive) The only items that were intact were the documents in the documents folder and the applications. I took the external hd back to the repair shop and they said they could not find them. They said they would charge me £100 for an attempted recovery of data which I 'm now not sure what to do, as I'm unsure what has happened. I desperately would like to get some of the data back, i;e (some files from desktop and photos) as frustratingly it was not backed up....
My questions are:
1.Would trying to open iphoto, and itunes from my external HD with earlier software in 10.9.2 Mavericks cause me to lose data (including desktop files) ?
2. Could the water damage be the issue for destroying the data? (although other data is still there)
3. Is it likely the files are still on my external hd and I just can't see them (although the low bytes seems to indicate perhaps not)
4. Is there a reliable data recovery program out there someone can recommend I can get and use that may recover the files, and do I download it on my new mac, and direct it to the external hd?
5. Would apeture locate the missing iphoto picture files from the external HD and integrate it into the library on my mavericks?
6. Could the problem be caused by leaving the HD in my old(water damaged) laptop for so long before I tried rescuing it?
Any light on situation much appreciated. Apologies if this issue already been aswered, I did scour but did not see help I needed.
Thanks in advance

Hi T,
Thanks again for reply. Just checked my mac for the first time without the external HD attached. I had a hard time trying to get back into this site on my new mac. Now I keep getting a pop up that says (https:// discussions.apple.com bad gateway) with ok button every every 30 secs or or something after that I can't type except if I click ok. Prior to that I had some message telling me something about proxy server gateway no access or something. Not happenign on other sites so perhaps just a random error, (hope I have now not picked up a bug or another insidious thing from some site whilst trying to resolve my old HD probs....)
Extremely annoying!!
Well I checked as you asked. This is the process.(if you can tell me how to take a screen shot I will do it, but at moment I don't know how to do that exactly)
At the moment I have got my HD showing on my desk top Top RH corner, like they used to in the good old days before it all changed. I do this, because everything is conveniently placed in one place. Call me old fashioned I guess..
(Not to change the thread but this pop up thing is driving me mad...)
If I doubleclick on that by default it opens with five folders in it, I;E applications, library, system, user information, users.
When I click on Users.
It is here I find the user file with a user name that I have NEVER entered into this new mac, (especially with old MAC HD attached as I did not want any confusion) I even re-named my old HD (OLD mac HD)
This new user file even has the icon of a HOUSE instead of a folder, which is something off older OS as far as I know, I never saw it in mavericks before attaching this encased contraption which is just a metal box as far as I see that holds my old HD, but annoyingly done by someone that may not have known what they were doing..
Why the heck is it there? It should not be there!
When I click on this old (home folder) as that is what it used to be, and that was the name of my OLD HD before it got the name (old mac HD) which now I think of it, was not changed by me by default... which is a thought.. I only added the word OLD to it..
Well it has all my default folders such as desk top, docs, movies, pictures ect.. When I click on pictures I have my new iphoto library and another folder called root which has the salvaged files I saved there from the recovery software Stellar Pheonix which I downloaded a couple of days ago but can't actually open with preview anyway. I tried to do it with an old version of CS 5 photoshop to see if that would work, but I could not get photoshop to open in mavericks even after java update)
The interesting thing is is: if I go to system preferences in my dock I click on users it only has the user folders I specified that should be there on my new mac.
now peeved. and this annoying pop up.....Situ does not seem to be getting any better!
Instructions please how to post screenshot..
PS sorry about LONG POST

Retrieving iPhoto pictures from external hard drive

Yesterday, I was finally successful in finding and retrieving E-mail files from my external hard drive. This long-awaited success made me optimistic that I would be able to do the same with missing photos from my iPhoto library. That turned out to overly optimistic, and I failed completely. Anyway, I think I found an important clue for my failure, and I'm hoping that someone here will be able to unravel that clue.
I have been unable to copy the screen where I find my iPhoto files, but I think the important thing is that many of them open up into a picture of a flower, which is probably a representation of a photo album. However, there is more to it than that. The last such picture I found showed--I think--that it contained 3.12 GB. If I'm right, these "photo albums" contain all of my missing iPhoto pictures. The problem is how to open up these "photo albums". Can anyone help?
One last thing: these iPhoto pictures were added to my computer over a period of years, so several different operating systems were involved. I remember Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion, but I've had some kind of Mac for at least ten years, so there were probably several others. Also, of course, several versions of iPhoto. I only mention this because I can remember notices on the screen to the effect that "this file cannot be opened because it was created in another operating system," or something to that effect.

I can't take a picture of the screen showing the iPhoto files, but here is what's there:
iPhoto Library
iPhoto Library (original 2)
iPhoto Library (Original 2) Recovered Photos
iPhoto Library (Original 2) Recovered photo 2
iPhoto Library (Original 3)
iPhoto Library (Original)
iPhoto Library (rebuilt).photolibrary
iPhoto Slide shows
When I click on them, I get different results. Sometimes photos, but also the following messages:
(1) iPhoto is unable to open this library. The library has issues that require rebuilding to correct.
QUIT REBUILD
(2) The photo library needs to be upgraded to work with this version of iPhoto.
Your iPhoto library will not be readable by previous versions of iPhoto after the upgrade. The upgrade process for very large libraries may take an hour or more to complete.
QUIT UPGRADE
(3)
To get started with iPhoto, do any of the following:
Connect a camera or memory card
Drag photos into iPhoto
Chose file>"import to library"

Some iPhoto pictures missing after time machine recovery, were there errors reported during backup that I missed?

Hello. I used time machine/time capsule to automatically back up my sytem over the last 3 years and I used the backups to recover my system to a new hard drive when the original drive began to fail. After recovery, I noticed there are missing photos in iPhoto.
I'm curios where I should look to see why they weren't backed up, and why it wasn't obvious to me at the time that they weren't backed up.
Does time machine explicitly call out issues when it can't back up a file or does it just squirrel a message away in the system log?
I'd like to know because I'd like avoid this issue going forward.
Full disclosure & History -
The hard drive on my late 2009 27" iMac was exhibiting issues and started to go bad. No problem I thought, I'll get a new one and recover the system from my time capsule.
The full recovery was initiated from the OS install media. Upon recovery, the system wouldn't boot. After booting from the OS install media and reinstalling the OS on top of the recovered data the system booted and seemed to retain almost everything. This may not be the best way to recover but it seemed to work.
I additionally had to:
repatch the OS
reinstall iWork
relicense MS Office (otherwise office seemed to be intact)
When I started looking through my iPhoto libraries, there were some events with no pictures (mostly the newer events). I couldn't find the pictures on the time capsule either so I'm curios if there was anyway I could have known that backups weren't completing successfully. I had run a time machine incremental backup before pulling out the old hard drive and it seemed to complete successfully so I'm at a loss. I can understand that as the hard drive began to fail, there may have been issues backing up the data, but I somehow missed it if/when the problems were reported.
Should I go through the old system logs that were backed up on the time capsule and look for backupd messages/errors? Going forward, how do I know if there are backup issues?
It took me a couple weeks to realize the drive was failing. I had noticed that the system performance was getting bad, and the system would occassionally hang. It would come back OK after a restart. I thought it was because the filesystem was getting close to full (30GB left on a 1 TB drive) so I was chasing down cleaning up some data to make more room. There were suggestions in other forums to try and keep the filesystem 10% free.
While moving data from the internal drive to a new external drive (to free up space) the system would hang. I eventually found a couple disk0 errors in the kernel log and I actually witnessed disk0 disappear while running an iostat. I'm thinking it took me too long to know the disk was going bad, and so the pictures I imported over the last 3-4 weeks may be gone.
I still have the original drive so I'll see if anything else can be salvaged from it.
Looking for some suggestions on
1) the ability to know if time machine backups are successful and are in sync with my system
2) the ability to know when there are hardware issues that I should be aware of
If you got to this point, thanks for taking the time to read through all this.
Regards,
-mike

Hi Mike,
I just saw this post and saw no one has responded. You might have figured out but in case, I wanted to let you know what I found out. I had the same problem. Hard drive failure, they installed a new one and my iPhoto pictures were missing. I couldn't find them on Time Machine either which baffled (and frustrated) me b/c I just backed up my drive and I was missing pictures from over a year ago.
I found this article and it allowed me to at least find my pictures...so they weren't lost after all.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/16029742#16029742
As for why they aren't showing up in iPhoto or Time Machine, the lady at the Mac store said it is probably an OS conflict. Which makes sense since I can see the actual pictures in the iPhoto content file (per the article mentioned above). However, I didn't have my computer with me at the store to have a Genius person help me resolve the conflict.
BUT, if you can find the pictures, then maybe you can reimport them into iPhoto? Just a thought.
Good luck!

Hundreds of my iPhoto pictures will not be copied and will not show when I double-click on them. When I do in iPhoto an exclamation surrounded by a triangle appears. Though I can see the picture in the small tiles below it will not expand.

Hundreds of my iPhoto pictures will not be copied and will not show when I double-click on them. When I do in iPhoto an exclamation surrounded by a triangle appears. Though I can see the picture in the small tiles below it will not expand. I also cannot attach any of these pics into an e-mail or into any other file. I have already went through all 3 Repair options and when that did not solve it went through a complete Rebuild. Any Help?! Any Suggestions on how to fix this?! I have spent almost 2 days now going through all of the published help.
I have backups going back 6 months - I have not had the real need to check every album before - but - all of my backups also have this same problem.

The triangle with the ! indicates that the connection between the thumbnail and the orginal is missing - this can be caused by many things including database corruption and user action emoving the originals photos on urpose or by accident
If the database is corrupted then rebuilding is the solution - backup and depress the option and command keys, launch iPhoto and rebuild your database -- if the iPhoto rebuild does not cure the problem then download iPhoto Library manager and use its rebuild command which creates a totally new library leaving the existing one untouched
If you have deleted the photos then you need to start over with a new library and import the photos you have not deleted into it
You can select one of the problem photos and use the reveal original in finder commander (file menu) to see if the original is there - if it is a finder window will open showing it
LN

Imported iPhoto Pictures Disappeared

Hello Fellow Mac Users!
I have a 2011 MacBook Pro running Lion 10.7.5 and it has all recent updates. I plugged in my Nikon D5100 and imported photos to iPhoto '11. I split and named the events. I imported all of the photos (and unfortunately clicked "Delete Photos from Camera After Import"). All of the photos disappeared from iPhoto (some are in photo stream), I cannot open photo stream from iPhoto on my MacBook (I can open it from my iPhone), and now some events don't have any photos when opened (although they show having photos from the events library) and some are misnamed with the event names from the import.
I have read and write permissions for iPhoto (I am the admin).
I tried restarting the program and computer. There aren't any updates that I am missing. Also, I held down command and alt while launching iPhoto, but no additional dialogue boxes were opened.
Please help.
Thank you!

a best practice to is to never have any computer program (including iPhoto) delete the photos from the card but to import the photos and keep them and then after at least one successful backup cycle has completed and the reformat the card -- I use three very large (32 GB) cards in rotation so I do not reformat for typically a year or more giving me one more long term backup of my photos
Your post goes aroung the field a lot and I am not really clear on what is working and what is not
Imported iPhoto Pictures Disappeared
All of the photos disappeared from iPhoto (some are in photo stream)
I cannot open photo stream from iPhoto on my MacBook (I can open it from my iPhone)
now some events don't have any photos when opened (although they show having photos from the events library)
Also, I held down command and alt while launching iPhoto, but no additional dialogue boxes were opened.
Typically this is because you do not hold the Alt & COmmand keys long enough
You appearently have a MacBook (10.6) and a MacBook Pro (10.7.5)
Did you import the photos to the MS or the MBP? You talk about trying to open PS on the MB with 10.6 - PS requires 10.7.5 or newer - Please explain - do your photos show in PS on the MBP?
what does " some events don't have any photos when opened (although they show having photos from the events library)" mean?
Please try to provide a more clear and concise description of the problem
LN

Lion ScreenSaver re-active hang during read my iPhoto pictures

Hi,
My Lion cannot display password logon during screensaver is reading my iPhoto pictures.
Because I setup my screensaver to random display my iPhoto pictures.
I have an external monitor with my MacBook. Both of my monitors will display iPhoto pictures with screensaver.
Screen hang if i'd like to re-active from screensaver to normal operation mode.
That will be fine if screensaver reads iPhoto pictures and start to display them.
Hang status happen during screensaver still reading iPhoto pictures for 2~3 seconds and before display them.
Please check what's happen with this kind of issue for current Lion OS X 10.7.3
Many thanks

Hi Mike,
I just saw this post and saw no one has responded. You might have figured out but in case, I wanted to let you know what I found out. I had the same problem. Hard drive failure, they installed a new one and my iPhoto pictures were missing. I couldn't find them on Time Machine either which baffled (and frustrated) me b/c I just backed up my drive and I was missing pictures from over a year ago.
I found this article and it allowed me to at least find my pictures...so they weren't lost after all.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/16029742#16029742
As for why they aren't showing up in iPhoto or Time Machine, the lady at the Mac store said it is probably an OS conflict. Which makes sense since I can see the actual pictures in the iPhoto content file (per the article mentioned above). However, I didn't have my computer with me at the store to have a Genius person help me resolve the conflict.
BUT, if you can find the pictures, then maybe you can reimport them into iPhoto? Just a thought.
Good luck!

Can I share my iphoto pictures with AT

Can I share my iphoto pictures with my AT&T Uverse tv?

Yes, this is exactly how I use iPhoto on my system.
You do need to update the permissions on the iPhoto directory after it's moved to the Shared folder. the default permissions will only permit your account to fully access the files, your wife's account will get errors or not see thumbnails correctly when accessing the pictures from iPhoto in her account.
After moving the iPhoto Library into Shared (and with iPhoto closed), Get Info on the iPhoto Library folder and change the Others access to Read+Write. Let it apply to all enclosed folders, also. Then hold down the Option key while starting iPhoto and choose the Shared version of the folder as your Library. Repeat the iPhoto launch w/option key on the other account as well and each user will access the same set of pictures, albums, keywords, etc. Just make sure you don't open iPhoto from both accounts at the same time. Close iPhoto before walking away from the computer or letting the other person logon.

I am moving all my iphoto pictures to seperate folders outside of iphoto. I have found iphoto slighlty cumbersome. After I move all pictures from iphoto to a separate file how can I delete all the iphoto photos without deleting the ones in the file?

I am moving all of my iphoto pictures into seperate folders becuase iphoto is great, but a bit cumbersome when I need to transfer all the pictures to a external drive.
1) After I move all pictures, how can I delete the iphoto pictures without destroying the ones I have in files
2) how can I ensure that I have sucessfully captures all the iphoto files so when I delelte from iphoto I have not forgotten any
3) is there a way to determine what duplicate pictures I have?
Thanks!

If you Control click on the iPhoto Library, you'll see a list of folders - one named "Masters". Inside of this folder are all of your original, high-res photos. You can copy them to other folders if you like.
You can't delete iPhoto pics without deleting the ones in the iPhoto Library.
You can copy all of your Masters pics out of the Library, ensuring that you won't forget any.
I don't know of anyway to determine if there are duplicate photos - most (if not all) have a unique name assigned.
Good luck,
Clinton

Managing photo storage on my iPhone/iPhoto/Pictures/External Hard-drive

Hello, I need some help with managing photo storage on my iPhone/iPhoto/Pictures/External Hard-drive.
Background:
I have 1,200 photos/videos on my iPhone 4S on the camera roll and need to delete them to save space. Most are photos/videos of my new baby which I would be devastated to lose, so I want to be 110% sure that I have them backed up properly and accessible.
I frequently hook my iPhone up to iPhoto to download all of the latest photos to iPhoto.
I have done Time Machine back ups and just did a latest one yesterday.
I would like to save my camera roll into a folder on my hard-drive so that all of these photos are in one place in case I need to access them (and not spread across different folders like in iPhoto).
My Mac (Macbook Pro - circa 2009) is now telling me that my 'Starter Disc is nearly full' and won't save all of the photos from my camera roll.
My questions;
Are photos stored both in iPhoto and Pictures folder, and if so are they duplicates?
I've heard that Time Machine only backs up full libraries and so cannot be used to access individual photos - is this true? If so, how do you access individual photos/files from my external hard-drive?
How and where should I delete older photos from to save space on my Mac - iPhoto or Pictures? (once I know how to access them from my external drive if needed).
How do I delete all of my photos from my iPhone camera roll in one go? - I can only see a way to delete the 1,200 of them individually.
Going forward where is the best place for me to synch/upload my photos for medium term storage/access on my Mac?
I would consider myself quite intelligent but when it comes to this topic, I'm happy to be spoken to in very simplistic terms!
Thank you.

Import the photos to iPhoto - then select the photos in iPhoto and export (file menu ==> export) to the desired location
LN

How to recover iphoto pictures from a hard drive

My macbook pro got water on it and it doesn't work anymore. I bought a new one, but want to recover the information from the hard drive in the old computer. I am trying to recover my iphoto pictures, but I cannot open the iphoto version in my old drive. Can you help? How can I recover the pictures from my iphoto library? Thank you for your suggestions.

Are you able to mount the old drive so you can access files on it? From your comment "I cannot open the iphoto version in my old drive" I'm assuming you can somehow.
Therefore copy the library to your new Mac and try to open the library from there. If you can copy the library to you new Mac but can't open it with iPhoto open it with the Finder and follow these directions:
Starting over from scratch with new library
Start over with a new library and import the Originals (iPhoto 09 and earlier) or the Masters (iPhoto 11) folder from your original library as follows:
1. Open the library package like this.
2. Launch iPhoto with the Option key held down and, when asked, select the option to create a new library.
3. Drag the subfolders of the Originals (iPhoto 09 and earlier) or the Masters (iPhoto 11) folder from the open iPhoto Library package into the open iPhoto window a few at a time.
This will create a new library with the same Events (but not necessarily the same Event names) as the original library but will not keep the metadata, albums, books slideshows and other projects.
Note: your current library will be left untouched for further attempts at a fix if so desired.

How do I create a pdf file of some iPhoto pictures

I deal with some client servers that will not allow embedded pictures in email message to pass through their firewall. So, I need to create a pdf file of some of my iPhoto pictures to send as an email pdf attachment. Can anyone help? I'm at a loss in trying to accomplish this. I have an iMac 27" running OS X 10.9.4 and iPhoto '09 version 8.1.2.

Use Pages (word processor) to put/arrange your images. Once done, save the document as a PDF file and attach it to your outgoing mail.

Sending an iPhoto picture gallery to MobileMe

When synchronizing an iPhoto picture gallery to MobileMe, is there any way to filter out which pictures in the gallery you want posted. For instance, can is there a way to only upload the "flagged" photos?

don't put the photos in the iPhoto MobileMe gallery - everything in the gallery will be synced with Mobile me
LN

Can I store iphoto pictures in time capsule and use with pad

Can I store iphoto pictures in time capsule and use with pad

We can tell you that it is possible to store separate images on the Time Capsule drive. If however, you are asking if you can access separate images from your Time Machine backups on the Time Capsule, this is not possible.
How you get the images that your want from iPhoto on your Mac to the Time Capsule drive is a question for the iPhoto experts. It will likely involve "exporting" the files that you want and then moving them using the Finder to the Time Capsule drive.
How you access those images on the Time Capsule from an iPad is a question for the Using iPad experts.

How can I create cd from IPhoto pictures

How can I create a cd from my IPhoto pictures?

Hello na59er,
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
For more information, take a look at:
iPhoto '11: Create your own photo CDs and DVDs
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH2436
Have a nice day,
Mario

Missing iPhoto pictures

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