Organizing by year

How do I sort pictures by year? The smart album feature doesn't even give the option. It seems to only allow for a month and a day. What's the point in that?

The Smart Album does give that option but it takes a bit more effort that it should. The SA criteria for 2008 would be:
Date is after 1/1/08
AND
Date is before 1/1/09
OT

Similar Messages

When I upgraded my IPad to OS 7.1, my photos are now organized by year, not by event. I want them organized by event like on my MAC. Help!

When I upgraded my IPad to iOS7.1, it changed the organization of my photos by year and now it.s difficult to find what I want. How can I get it back to the organization by event, as it is on my Mac?

I'm making an assumption .....
I think a what you are seeing is the Collections view in the Photos App. If you synced Events using iTunes and synced the photos from iPhoto on your Mac, try tapping on the Albums tab at the bottom of the photos app and look for Events from My Mac.

IPhoto Library folders: how are they organized?

Can anyone explain me how the iPhoto Library "block" is organized? I mean, photos and folders in iPhoto Library in Finder. Are they organized by year or by date of import? In particular, I have a mysterious "1904" folder that has photos of 2006 and they're not on the 2006 folder! I've tried to modify the original date and hour but it hasn't worked, they're still in this "1904" folder! How can I modify this?

? I mean, photos and folders in iPhoto Library in Finder. Are they organized by year or by date of import? I
It should not matter to you, since the folders inside the iPhoto Library are not meant for access by the user.
But to answer your question. iPhoto stores the original image files in folders corresponding to the date of the import session, and they will stay there, whatever you do in iPhoto. You cannot control the way iPhoto stores the photos inside the package.
Access the photos using iPhoto's application window or the Media Browser. It is safer.
If you open the library package you might accidentally move or modify the files.
See these User Tips:
How to Access Files in iPhoto
iPhoto and File Management

Arbitrary saving and organizing in iPhoto

Before I got the new iLife update my photos, when uploaded, would automatically be saved by iPhoto under Pictures>iPhoto Library> Year (eg. 2006)>Month (12)>Day (01).
Now, however, since installing the upgrade iPhoto automatically saves my pictures in either Modified or Originals and then organizes them by rolls (eg. Roll 138). This has made it much harder to find photos when I want to send them to somebody.
I have looked in Preferences and I can't find any option that lets you tell iPhoto how you want you pictures to be organized on the hard drive. I was fine with the old system and would like to just switch back to organizing by year, month, and day.

Artgirl137:
Welcome to the Apple Discussions.
This has made it much harder to find photos when I want to send them to somebody.
All you need to do is select the photos in iPhoto that you want to email and click on the email button at the bottom. It will open Mail, insert the photos in the size you choose, and you're on your way.
iPhoto is designed so that the user doesn't have to go into the Finder to get photos for mailing or use by other applications. It can be done all within iPhoto.

Organizing folders

I copied all of my pictures from my pc to cds and imported them to iphoto. i have a problem with which folders my pictures end up in. for instance, in my iphoto library one main folder is a year ,"2003", which leads to another folder, a number, "6", and so on...for 3-4 times. my library is so random and i can never find them to send online or host.
is there a way to choose a folder to put the pictures when you import them?
also, is there an easy way to move pictures between folders?
on my pc i could just open up two folder and drag & drop my pictures into different folders, but i can't seem to do this on my mac.

Hi john,
This is how the iPhoto Library is organized in the Finder. The rule of thumb is "Look but don't touch"
This is a view of how the iPhoto Library looks in the Finder.
It is organized by Year folders. Inside the Year folders are Month folders. Inside the Month folders are the days of the Month. Inside the day folders are the photos you took on that day. If you imported video clips and RAW files on that day they will be in an Originals folder. If you have edited any photo imported on that day, the original will be in that folder also.
Two Apple kbs for you to read
Don't tamper with files in the iPhoto library folder
About the iPhoto Library folder
In your second question, I think you are talking about putting/moving images in folders in the Finder. No, you can't do that as per the two links I posted above. You cannot, rename, move, or delete anything from the iPhoto Library folder in the Finder....Period!
iPhoto imports all the images into it's own database and organizes them in the dated folders. All the organization you do within the iPhoto application to the library such as albums,keywords,smart albums is all stored in data files. There is nothing visual that you see in the folder in the Finder.
So, to answer one of the other questions...
Share/export the images that you want to upload/use to a folder on the desktop. Navigate to that folder in the application you are using to upload, etc, and choose your images.
I hope that answers most of your questions!

Organizing Aperture Library

I'm new to Aperture and just finished importing my iPhoto library via selecting import iPhoto library to Aperture library. My desire was to have the same library that was organized in iPhoto only in Aperture. When I go to iPhoto library and right click I have all my photos organized in year folders and then in date folders. Unfortunately when I go into Aperture and do the same thing, I end up with one year with multiple layers of folders that don't seem to reference anything and then end up with my events individualized in folders under about 12 layers of folders? Is this normal, did I miss selecting something in the import. I've read something about metadata and how to organize into year month project etc. Will this also rearrange the folders in the file?

Petersa,
Before getting into the heart of the response, let's take a step back for a minute. I don't want anything catastrophic to happen to your original images, so before anything else, you need to make sure you have a true backup of your master images. Once you are certain that your original images are secure, we can proceed. I hope that you have been making backups of your original images, and that the only place they reside is not in the iPhoto library on your internal disk. You should have either a backup of the images on an external drive (multiple backups on multiple drives in multiple locations would be even better, but more on backup strategies at another time), or at the very least, a backup of the iPhoto library on an external drive.
The reason I mention this, is that I am a bit uncomfortable hearing that you are deleting anything, duplicates or not, without truly knowing what you are doing. The worst case scenario should be that completing this transfer takes more time than you would like. It would be catastrophic for you to lose your image files, so please, please, please make sure everything is backed up.
Once that is done, we can restart this thread.
Okay, so moving on, I'd like to know how you went about importing your iPhoto library into Aperture. In Aperture did you goto File -> Import -> iPhoto Library, or File -> Import - Show iPhoto Browser? If you imported the first way, i.e. the iPhoto Library, a dialogue box would have come up giving you a number of options. You would have been given option such as, "Import Folders as" where you could have selected things such as Projects and Albums, etc. Next, it would have asked you where you want to store the files - in the Aperture Library, in their current location, or a location of your choosing. Depending on what you might have chosen here could help answer your question as to where those files are. You would have also been given the option to either move the files (in which case, the image files would be permanently moved from the iPhoto folder to your newly created Aperture folder) or to copy the files (in which case you would have duplicates - one in your iPhoto folder and a new one in your Aperture folder). You would next have the option to instruct Aperture not to import duplicates if you so desired. You would then have been given the naming options...
It doesn't sound like you took this route, but instead chose the second option where you opened the iPhoto Browser. From there, you might have dragged your images into Aperture, but unless your dragged them in folder by folder, you really wouldn't have any organization at all. You would no projects or folders, but rather an image library of referenced images that are potentially not of a very high quality depending on your settings. By default, Aperture creates previews that are half the size of the original JPEG image. You can change all of this in the settings, but this is for another discussion.
My advice to you at this point is to start again, so long as you know everything is backed up and you are certain that you have backups of your original files. If you are sure of this, I would delete the Aperture Library. Out of curiosity, I would be interested to know the method you took to import your images into Aperture in the first place. Once that is deleted, you can open Aperture and start again. I would be happy to walk you through it.
A few words on the rest of your post.
1. A referenced library means that everything is stored in the Aperture library except the master file. The master (or original image file) is stored in a location of your choosing. Everything else is still stored in the Aperture library, and this includes edit instructions to images, previews (should you generate them, which you shouls), etc. Most people who choose to run Aperture as a referenced library, keep their master images on an external disk. This allows them to have immediate access to images and their folder structure. I would still recommend a managed library, as for what you seem to want to do, a managed library would be much easier for you.
Before moving on, I want to mention a bit about the Aperture Library (and iPhoto Library) folders. While you can access them, you really shouldn't go in to them. Apple allows you access to them, but there really is no reason you should ever have to go into them. Therefore, when you mention the bit about right clicking on the Aperture Library in the finder and click "show content files" you really shouldn't be (nor need to be) doing this. Aperture manages this folder for you and you really shouldn't concern yourself with the organization, structure or hierarchy of things. There are other items in that folder aside from the masters, such as Thumbnails, Previews, instructions, etc... If you need access to an image, everything can (and should) be done right from within Aperture itself. This goes for iPhoto as well. I believe that Aperture and iPhoto keep your masters organized by date, so you might see a folder named 2009 and inside of that, different folders with a number from 1 to 12 signifying images that were taken in a certain month and inside of that days from 1 to 30(1) for the images taken on those days. This is the way that the Aperture and iPhoto library keep your masters, but in no way, shape or form does this mean that it is how you have to organize your library.
Of course, if you want to you can as that is a personal preference. In any case, it is very easy to do that, but it won't necessarily happy automatically.
Getting back to what you need to do, is better understand how your computer holds and stores images versus how you can organize them in Aperture. When you start talking about going into the iPhoto and Aperture folders and digging around looking at and trying to find images, you are in for a lot of trouble. This is not the way to do this.
In trying to keep this simple without trying to explain every nuance and detail of how Aperture works and what you can do with it, we first need to set up your Aperture library. As I mentioned, I would trash the Aperture library you created and just start again. You can either import the Aperture Library as I mentioned above and make sure of the import parameters that Aperture gives to you. Another option is to export all of your original images from iPhoto into a folder system that makes sense to you on your desktop or external drive and then import them into Aperture in the ways that I described above.
Since this is getting very long and winded, I'm going to stop here to see if you are following me and understand what to do next. If so, we can proceed with more detailed instructions moving forward. This will include how to organize the Aperture library based on what makes sense to you (and this does not mean going into the Aperture Library folder. I will reiterate that you will never need to go in there, and shouldn't go in there). We can also talk about naming files. You have different options - a master name and version names. You really have so many different options and it is all non-destructive so you can really customize to your hearts content without worrying about it. Okay, let me know if you understand what to do next, or if you are totally confused.
Mac

Organizing/ unable to locate from finder

I am fairly new to mac and I have gone through all the tutorials and FAQ's. I get the concept of Iphoto and how it works. but when I try to find photos from the finder the organization makes no since and I can't find anything. I click on finder then photos them several folders appear ( ichat, itunes artwork, 2005, and iphoto library) I them go to i photo library then there are several different folders (none that I made)with various numbers for names (5,7,9,2) within each folder sits a few of my photos with no grouping since?!?! I need help as I thought this was a user friendly system.... Is there a piece of software that is for macs that will help me make sence of this ???

hi Nathan,
the other posters are correct and I will elaborate a little more because I already have this info copied...
This is a view of how the iPhoto Library looks in the Finder.
It is organized by Year folders. Inside the Year folders are Month folders. Inside the Month folders are the days of the Month. Inside the day folders are the photos you took on that day. If you imported video clips and RAW files on that day they will be in an Originals folder. If you have edited any photo imported on that day, the original will be in that folder also.
I suspect your problem is trying to find images to use in other applications without opening iPhoto. Problem is, iPhoto was meant to have everything done through it from emailing images, exporting, web pages, editing, etc.
More info for you:
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".

Organizing photos on Mac

Transitioning from MS to Mac. Have 10,000+ photos, organized by year taken and also albums with copies of select photos(many cropped/enhanced). Would like to import all to Mac, burn DVDs by year with all photos taken that year and albums with select photos. Then only retain on the mac the albums ie delete the year taken folder with all the photos.
Appreciate guidance on easiest process.
Thanks.

Yeah, GC allows you to keep the pics & folders the way you wan't.
On Import... GC allows you to view the folders without any importing, in fact you can do the whole drive, then do much from there, like dragging to a Burn Folder, even deleting if you wish...

Organizing Photos on import after upgrading to Lightroom 5

Recently upgraded to Lightroom 5 and when photos imported from lightroom 4 they are no longer organized they way they were in lightroom 4. They were organized by year and month, now they are all in one folder with no organization. Is there a way to change this setting to autmatically organize on import by year and month. I can't find my older pictures in lightroom.
Thanks.

True, which is what I think I did.
Installed Lr5, and when I opened it was prompted to make the catalog compatible to use in Lr5 so I clicked ok. Now my pictures are in one folder. Trying to change the setting so it will organize them based year, then month.

HT4927 Why can't we restore a single photo in iPhoto anymore?

The loss of this functionality has been anoying and I sincerely hope that Apple brings it back someday. It makes Time Machine a lot less useful for customers and also potentially leads to the loss of more data. It used to be that you could restore a single image, say that was acidentally deleted. Now if you were to restore the entire iPhoto Library with Time Machine, you'd get the one image back but lose every other image you added since then. That make no sense. Of course Time Machine will ask if you want to overwrite thr iPhoto Library or duplicate and keep the original, but how many people are going to know they should keep the original? And if you have a large library you may not have the space. Even if you did dupe the Library you would then need to Open the restored Library (hold option while opening iPhoto and select the Library), find the image you want back, copy it out of the old Library, quit iPhoto, re-open iPhoto with the existing Library, re-add the photo you want to restore. Way too many steps.
There is another workaround that I will share here, but it too is too complex for many people. Bottom line Apple needs to bring back the old method for restoring iPhotos using Time Machine.
Here's how I would restore a single image in iPhoto with Time Machine. I personally also make an extra backup of the iPhoto Library before using this method, just in case.
Go to ~/Pictures/iPhoto Library
Right+Click the iPhoto Library and choose 'Show Package Contents'
Click the 'Originals' alias
Now you should see a bunch of folders organized by year
Activate Time Machine
Browse back to find the image you want to restore. The folders go by year > month > day. After that the folder and image names are cryptic, but you can use the previews to find the image you want to restore.
Select it and restore it with Time Machine.
I would then move the image out of the ~/Pictures/iPhoto Library package folder and re-add it manually to iPhoto.

There is a way if you know the photo's file name but not fast.
1 - download and launch Find Any File
2 - select the Time Machine drive and search for the file name.
3 - you'll get several hits in each library backup, i.e. the original, thumbnail, preview and editied version.
4 - make sure you choose the file in the Originals or Masters folder and drag from the search results window to the Desktop.
Due to the nature of the backup structure the search can take a while.
Send a feature request to Apple via http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphoto.html to bring back the single photo restore.
OT

How do I create an automator variable for a path that includes a date?

I like to use Image Capture to scan documents into a hierarchy of folders under my ~/Documents directory that are organized by year and document type. For example, I have
~/Documents/archives/2011
     /Misc
     /Utilities
and
~/Documents/archives/2012
     /Misc
     /Utilities
for archiving miscellaneous docs and utilities bills. Now, switching folders in Image Capture is annoying so I want to use the Automator support built into that app to direct the scanned images to ~/Documents/archives/<Current Year>/Misc or ~/Documents/archives/<Current Year>/Utilities. I was able to do this with separate Automator workflows, each with a hard-coded path to the destination folder. For example,
What I would like to do is use an Automator variable to dynamically determine ~/Documents/archives/<Current Year>/Misc. I see variables for Home, Documents, and Current Year.   However, when I try to create a new path variable it only lets me choose a full path to a Finder folder. How do I combine Documents and Current Year variables with the "archives" and "Misc" folder names to create a new path variable?

Well now, you went and made me learn something today. In the Variables Library, under Utilities, is a variable named AppleScript. You can put a small script into this that evaluates to your path, for example:
((((path to documents folder) as text) & "archives:" & (year of (current date)) as text) & ":Utilities") as alias
If the script evaluates to a proper path, it can be used wherever any other path can - you can experiment by looking at the results of a Get Value of Variable action.

Everything including my AVG software that refers to firefox or mozilla garnets a crash, I cannot even load the software from the AVG disk without the crash reporter and no sucess loading

I bought and installed the new AVG software for 2012 as soon as it was installed I began to have issues with the system, all regarding Firefox and Aurora, it seemed to work at first but then started to slow down the second monitor. When I purchased the AVG 2 other software packages were sugested so I got them, Reg Booster and Sys Tweak, I have all three licences and recorded purchaces'. This morning I wanted to start the P C and the first monitor was just pulseing and the second one would not come on, after checking all the hardware and nvidia software settings I decided to go back to a system restore point which has allowed me to use the computer in regular mode (Not safe) and everything else is working just fine, except the AVG software disk generates a crash report for mozilla and using the safe mode does not work as neither does any other method to start or load firefox or any mozilla products, I had to swithc over to internet explore just to get here, and my virus protection is not functioning and the toolbar (AVG) says its up to date but nothing with firefox or mozilla will work. WHY!Dear John,
Congratulations! You are helping preserve the world's largest public resource: the Web.
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As you can see I have been a subscriber for ever and finally joind the team (Ieven got the t-shirt) but as of right now I cannot load or reload or fix or do anything with eaither my browser or my anti virus software....I know you guys didn't do something underhand did ubiblu the tweak sys or the reg booster? and if so why would it be offered to me through the AVG people?

The same thing happened to me, since I have iPhoto 9.2.3
There is some kind of "direct access" to your original photos:
/Users/[your user name here]/Pictures/iPhoto Library/Masters
All pictures should be saved there, organized by year...
iPhoto will still not work but at least you can recover your photos.

How can I select 5-star photos in one catalog and use them to create a new catalog

I've been using Lightroom since LR1. I now have several LR 5.5 catalogs generally organized by year and camera. I want to create a new catalog which will contain my best from each catalog. BUT, I don't want to remove the photos from their "home" catalog. The photos will continue to reside in both their original catalog and in the new "Portfolio" catalog. The easiest way to approach this is to filter photos in catalog "A" by rating, select all 5-star photos and create a new catalog containing just the selection. I don't want to export or remove them from their catalog or move them on disk. I want them to appear in BOTH catalogs. Since Lightroom is built on a database that merely points to image files, it seems like this should be possible.
I realize I can create an empty catalog and select File->Import from Another Catalog... , then locate the photos one at a time by name and location clicking the import checkbox - tedious is an understatement when you have several 10's of thousands of photos.
Any ideas?

jimfeet wrote:
Yes, that's an option I've considered. But as with any database, size is inversely proportional to speed - larger database equals slower performance. LR 5 is much better than earlier versions in this regard but when you reach 100,000 images you can feel it.
This is incorrect. I accept that you think the database is getting slower, but the database (and really all databases) are designed to work pretty much the same regardless of the number of records, except for perhaps searching through the entire catalog. We have seen in this forum people who are now editing larger RAW files than a few years ago, they see it is slower, and decide it is the size of the database, rather than the size of their photos.
What aspects of Lightroom are slow? If it's scrolling and displaying the previews and searching, then it might be the database. If its displaying images in the Develop module, it is NOT the database at all.
Have you taken steps to improve the performance of the database, such as Optimizing it regularly? have you tried these performance tips: FAQ: Experiencing Performance related problems in Lightroom?

My photos are stored on ext. hard drive, and now I can't see them

I recently moved all of my photos over to an external hard drive, and have been quite happy with the freed up space on my ibook. I have been able to view them flawlessly until a few nights ago. Our power went out, and then came back on (yes, I know I should have a battery back up), so of course the ext. harddrive turned off with unmounting, and since then, I cannot view my photos in iphoto. There is still the correct picture count registering, however in place of all of my photo thumbnails in IPhoto, now I am only seeing grey boxes in the same shapes as the thumbnails. I have tried everything, including unmounting the ext. hard drive. I am at my wits end and have been working too much to go into the genius bar.
Anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks,
Jerrod

Hi Jerrod,
A couple of things for you to try:
-Launch iPhoto with the Option key depressed and choose to open another library. Navigate to the one on the external and choose it.
-Delete your iPhoto Preference file
Preference file
-rebuild your library
Try this:
Before doing a rebuild make sure iPhoto's trash bin is emptied. You can do this by control clicking on the trash bin, or from the menu bar under iPhoto.
Close iPhoto
Duplicate the iPhoto Library folder
Drag the duplicate to the desktop (hopefully you have enough room on your hard drive for the duplicate.)
Launch iPhoto holding down the Command and Option keys until you see the rebuild options screen.
Choose the first three options. If you were missing photos in your library, also choose the last option. Be advised that you will get a roll of orphaned photos and it might be quite huge. Most of them will already be in your iPhoto library, but use caution when deleting anything from this roll until you are sure the photos are still in your library in another place. It might be a good idea to share/export this roll of photos just in case you need to import them again.
Back to the rebuild, depending on the size of your library it might take some time. When it is done, hopefully your photos will be there.
You might see some unexpected results as I did when I did a rebuild. Photos had been moved to wrong dates, video clips had lost their duration info and some were even orphaned from the jpg pointer file. It took me some time to straighten it out again.
This is the reason to make a duplicate before you rebuild, in case you do not like the result. If you don't like the result, close iPhoto, then delete the rebuilt library and drag the duplicate back into the Pictures folder making sure the name is iPhoto Library. Launch iPhoto and it should open the library in the Pictures folder.
iPhoto 4 or later: Rebuilding the iPhoto Library
-Navigate through the iPhoto Library folder and make sure your images are still there and open when double clicked.
This is a view of how the iPhoto Library looks in the Finder.
It is organized by Year folders. Inside the Year folders are Month folders. Inside the Month folders are the days of the Month. Inside the day folders are the photos you took on that day. If you imported video clips and RAW files on that day they will be in an Originals folder. If you have edited any photo imported on that day, the original will be in that folder also.
Please get back with the steps you tried and the results.
If none of these suggestions work, you can create a new library and import from the old.
Close iPhoto
Rename your messed up iPhoto Library to "iPhoto Library_old"
Drag this library to your desktop
Hold down the Option key and launch iPhoto
This is the window you will get
Create a new library or choose a library to open
Choose to create a new library
Once this new empty library is open it is time to import the images from your old library
Go to File>add to library
Navigate to the old library on your desktop and choose it.
iPhoto will start importing the images from your old library
This is what to expect:
Your images will be imported in nice dated rolls. (make sure your view is set to sort by rolls to see it) There are a couple of caveats to this. You will get rolls named "Originals" These rolls will contain your video clips and your original images that you had edited. If you had RAW files they would be in those rolls too (I don't do RAW, so I don't know for sure) Delete what you don't want from those rolls. You will also get the jpeg pointer files to your video clips imported. They will just be jpegs and will not point to the video clips anymore as iPhoto made new ones when the clips were imported again. You can delete those. they should be in a roll right next to the newly imported video clips so they are not hard to find. The thumbnail files don't get imported as iPhoto makes new ones when the images are imported.
Once all you images have been imported, check through the library and make sure everything looks ok.
You can now start making your Albums, and do your keywords or any other organizational steps.
You can also delete the old library on the desktop.
It is also a good time to backup this new library to CD/DVD by burning the iPhoto LIbrary folder in the Finder, or copying the iPhoto Library folder to an external drive formatted for Macs, or copying the iPhoto LIbrary folder to an iPod.
Good luck!
Lori

How do I fix a messed-up iPhoto Library?

I have been using iPhoto since version 1. In the early days when iPhoto's performance was severely crippled by large number of photos I used iPhoto Buddy (v1.3) to create separate Libraries. As iPhoto matured and got more efficient at handling large libraries around 2005, I decided to merge my separate (organized by year) Libraries into a single, large Library. I have obviously failed miserably since I now find photos scattered all over my hard drive.
In the Pictures folder I have five iPhoto Libraries: 1) iPhoto Library (7.5 GB, my latest photos) 2) iPhoto Library 2001 (360MB), 3) iPhoto Library 2002 (160MB), 4) iPhoto Library 2003 (202MB) and 5) iPhoto Library Archive (513MB). I understand that the underlying iPhoto Library architecture has changed over time and my earlier Libraries, generated prior to iPhoto '06, are fundamentally different from the more current Libraries (I am now using iPhoto '08 v7.1.5). The first two Libraries in the above list are packages (i.e., newer format) while the others are separate folders with subsequent sub-folders. My most recent photos are so deeply buried in my screwed-up file structure that it practically impossible to find individual original files. For example, here is the path-name to a recent photo: User/kmf/Pictures/iPhoto Library/2003/10/04/iPhoto Library 2004/Data/2008/November 21, 2008!!
How do I restore some order to this mess. My wife is mad at me because she can't find some of her original photo files without needing to drill deep into the file structure. Can a program like iPhoto Library Manager help, although it sounds very much like the iPhoto Buddy application that got me into this mess in the first place? Help.

Karl
Welcome to the Apple user assistance forums
first - you should never be using the finder to look at or move photos
I'd start by launching iPhoto while depressing the option (alt) key and using the select library option and see what libraries you can find that iPhoto likes - open each one and verify it - and then download iPhoto Library manager - http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/ - and use the paid version to merge the ones you just found into one new library
Once you have a know good library that contains all of the photos from good libraries then back it up and delete the libraries that you merged to create it
Then spotlight "Originals" and see if you find any originals folders from old libraries - if you do take a look at them and see if it looks like you want the photo from them in your "new" library - if you find ones you want drag them (of the folder if you want the entire folder) to iPhoto to import them
Then if you believe there are still photos not in the new library you will have to use spotlight to find JPEGs that are not in the new library and import them
Once you get things like you want my personal suggestion is to keep everything in one big library - and back up often
I only use secondary libraries for projects (books, etc) and testing
Good Luck
LN

Organizing by year

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