Previews folder in the iPhoto Library

Hi all, Anyone know what the previews folder is for in the iPhoto library (Show package contents) - and also if it's safe to delete? It's 8gb and would give me some breathing space on my SSD.

This is really, really simple: Don't change anything in the iPhoto Library Folder via the Finder or any other application. iPhoto depends on the structure as well as the contents of this folder. Moving things, renaming things,, deleting them or otherwise making changes will prevent iPhoto from working and could even cause you to damage or lose your photos.
No you can't delete it. It's used by the app when sharing with other apps. Deleting it will corrupt your Library.
If space is an issue you can run a library from an external disk.
Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
Regards
TD

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How do I get photos from the iPhoto import folder to the iPhoto library? It uploaded, but hung while deleting from my camera, so no imported photos are in the iPhoto library.

How do I get photos from the iPhoto import folder to the iPhoto library? It uploaded, but hung while deleting from my camera, so no imported photos are in the iPhoto library. I watched it upload about 400 photos, one by one. They're somewhere, but they don't appear in the iPhoto library. As iPhoto was deleting them from my camera, it got hung up, then a message came "you should eject before disconnecting a device." I hadn't touched the camera. The message came by itself. I couldn't get iPhoto to respond, so I disconnected the camera and did a Force Quit. Opening it back up, the pictures were gone. Can somebody help me?

What version of iPhoto are you running? Assuming it's iPhoto 9 or later Apply the two fixes below in order as needed:
Fix #1
1 - launch iPhoto with the Command+Option keys held down and rebuild the library.
2 - run Option #4 to rebuild the database.
Fix #2
Using iPhoto Library Manager to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
1 - download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.
2 - click on the Add Library button and select the library you want to add 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.
5 - Click on the Create button.
Note: This creates a new library based on the LIbraryData.xml file in the library and will recover Events, Albums, keywords, titles and comments but not books, calendars or slideshows. The original library will be left untouched for further attempts at fixing the problem or in case the rebuilt library is not satisfactory.
OT

I am not able to open iPhoto, when I have used the iPhoto Library Manager, I get the message that "the iPhoto Library folder could not be found" Help!

Help! I can't open the iPhoto! I have os x 10.5.8 and I have tried using the iPhoto Library Manager only to find out that the folder for the iPhoto Library could not be found.
I have also tried the Fix #1 from the user Old Toad who said to delete the preference file :com.appleiPhoto.plist - I could do that, but I couldn't figure out how to delete iPhoto's cache fie, Cache.db because I couldn't find it? I'm not sure how to find the file by it's directory path name of HD/User/Home/Library/Caches/com.apple.iPhoto .
Help is very much appreciated!
vernawithav

Download and use Find Any File to search for "Library6.iPhoto". It's a file that is present in every iPhoto library. If you don't find one on your hard drive then your library has gone missing entirely.
Another thing you can try is to use the Search For - All Images feature in the Finder window to see if you can see any of your photos.
That will tell you if they are on your hard drive but somewhere other than the library.
What do you see when you insert the DVD into the optical drive? Can you open it and any folders on the disk? If the disk is titled iPhoto Library then open the disk, the the iPhoto Library folder and finally the Originals folder. Check the subfolders to see if your photos are there.
Your original photo files will be in the Originals subfolders.

How do I put back masters folder in iPhoto library back to the iPhoto library?

I was tinkering with the iPhoto library and clicked the Show Package Contents. I inadvertently dragged the masters folder outside the iPhoto library. Now it's under Pictures alongside the iPhoto library. How do I put back the masters folder into its original location?

Thanks, Terence Devlin. Just read a discussion about this...

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

I went into the original files in the iphoto library and organised the photos there, now when I try to look at the photos in iphoto the tiles are there but when I try to enlarge or put into a slide show a big grey explanation mark occurs?

I tried to organise my iphoto originals to it would be easier to back them up onto my hard drive, so I renamed them and grouped them in the orinigal file. Now when I go onto iphoto to view the photos in a slide show a big exclamation mark comes up and if I click on the photo to see the original file it can't find it. Any ideas?

You won't be able to run the rebuild function and restore your library becaue you renamed and regrouped your original photos from the Finder. I doubt if you can change the names back to their original names and put them back in the folders they were in originally so your only option is get your backup library and replace the one you damaged.
If you don't have a backup copy of the library from just before the problem that contains all of your photos you will need to start over from scratch as follows:
Start 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. Move the existing library folder to the desktop.
2. Open the library package like this.
Click to view full size
3. Launch iPhoto and, when asked, select the option to create a new library.
4. Drag the Originals (iPhoto 09 and earlier) or the Masters (iPhoto 11) folder from the iPhoto Library on the desktop into the open iPhoto window.
Click to view full size
This will create a new library with the same Events as the original library but will not keep the metadata, albums, books slideshows and other projects.
In the future stay out of the iPhoto Library package and only access the photos using iPhoto.
OT

Determining folder sizes inside iPhoto Library Package, eg Originals/2009

In iPhoto '09 is it possible to determine (in an automated fashion) the size of the folders inside the Originals folder inside the iPhoto Library Package.
I'm working on a MacBook Pro with limited space so I wanted to identify the folders that are taking up the most space and try to remove them.
Specifically, I'm looking at the following location:
Originals/2008/...
Originals/2009/...
Those seem to be the largest folders, so removing some of the largest ones will really help for a trip I have coming up.
Thanks for the insights.

Thanks for the info on DiskInventoryX. Unfortunately it cannot look inside of the iPhoto Library Package, so I guess I need to keep looking into the true format of a package... Is a package similar to a tgz file?
It is unfortunate that the Mac doesn't automatically list the size of the contents of folders in the finder. Having that information listed in the finder would be very beneficial...
Since it sounds like iPhoto is so sensitive about folder structure modifications and does not have the ability to adapt to changes, I may need to look into another program that is a bit more forgiving for working with large numbers of photographs that are only temporarily on the MacBook Pro before being moved over to the Desktop. My workflow requires that most photos and videos are temporarily stored and worked on the MacBook Pro and then (a few weeks over) moved off and over to a desktop for permanent storage and further editing.
Thanks again for all the thoughts and insights, as it is much appreciated...

IPhoto Preview Folder Twice the Size of Masters Folder

I am trying to back up my computer to a cloud-based server. It is getting hung up on iPhoto each time. The server team is looking at it but the representative noted that my preview folder is twice the size of my masters folder. I have a little over 28,000 photos totaling 492 GB; the Masters folder is ~175 GB; the Preview twice that. Is that normal?

Most Simple Back Up:
Drag the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to another Disk. This will make a copy on that disk.
Slightly more complex: Use an app that will do incremental back ups. This is a very good way to work. The first time you run the back up the app will make a complete copy of the Library. Thereafter it will update the back up with the changes you have made. That makes subsequent back ups much faster. Many of these apps also have scheduling capabilities: So set it up and it will do the back up automatically.
Example of such apps: Chronosync - but there are many others. Search on MacUpdate or the App Store
But note the back up disk must be formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
The size of the Preview folder seems odd. Look inside and sort it on size. What's in the biggest folder?

Whenever I try to open iPhoto, a message comes up saying that 148 photos have been found in the iPhoto Library that have not been imported. It asks me if I want to import them and I say NO but then it places them in a recovered photo folder. I keep deleti

Whenever I try to open iPhoto, a message comes up saying that 148 photos have been found in the iPhoto Library that have not been imported. It asks me if I want to import them and I say NO but then it places them in a recovered photo folder. I keep deleting the empty recovered photo files but it just keeps asking me every time I go to open iPhoto! I'd love to just get rid of the "found" photos (I can't open them anyway!)
How do I get rid of them so that I can just open iPhoto straight up without this?
Linda

Open your iPhoto Library package with the Finder.
Click to view full size
look for a folder titled Import or Importing and move it to the Desktop. Launch iPhoto to see if the message goes away. If there is no message check the contents of the Import folder to see if you want to keep any of those image files (usually they have not been imported into iPhoto). If you want to keep them then drag the folder into the open iPhoto window to import.
OT

I have an external hard drive connected to my iMac 2006; the OS on this iMac has been upgraded. I wanted to have back up copies of all our photos on iPhoto; I moved the iPhoto Library folder to the EHD. Now I want to delete a lot of the photos on the iM

I want to delete the photos on the iMac's hard drive but I want all the copies on the EHD; to free up space on the iMac. I experimented by deleting one photo in the iPhoto library on iMac but when I checked the EHD, it was deleted there, too. How can I delete photos from iMac w/out deleting from EHD?

Photo Library icon that sits on my desktop
Do a Get Info in the Finder on that, is it an Alias pointing to the external drive?
Open the iPhoto Library folder on your actual internal drive in the Finder, is that deleed pic stil there?

If I use a backup machine that has a folder of my iphoto library, can I delete my Iphoto library without the machine updating and deleting the photos as well?

Hey everyone, I have a Lacie 1 TB back up machine that I use to backup every once in a while everything I have in my macbook pro.
I don't know if there's a difference between a hard disk in which you save whatever you want or a back up machine that backs up whatever you have in your computer once you connect it, so, My question is the following:
Having backed up my Iphoto (I checked if there's a folder in the machine with all my photos), can I now get rid of all my photos in the laptop so there's more space? If I delete my photos (in Iphoto), does the back up machine automatically update its folders and delete my saved iphoto contents as well?
Thank you!
I'm doing this because my laptop is running really slow lately and makes a lot of noise (like an airplane getting ready for take off) even though I've used it for a year.
I use a Macbook pro 15''
OS X Version 10.8.4
processor: 2.2 GHz intel core i7
Memory 8GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Startup disk : macintosh HD

Okay:
Except an arrow turning in circle near the ''wireless'' or ''sound'' symbols on the top of the screen. If I click on it, I see ''enter time machine'', ''back up now'', ''open time machine preferences''.
You're using Time Machine to back up to the External Disk.
Back to your first question:
Having backed up my Iphoto (I checked if there's a folder in the machine with all my photos), can I now get rid of all my photos in the laptop so there's more space?
No.
Time Machine keeps a rolling back up of your data. Eventually, anything you delete from your Mac will be deleted from iPhoto too.
If space is an issue then get another HD. They're not expensice and you can put your iPhoto Library on it.
Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
3. Hold down the option (or alt) key while launching iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library' and navigate to the new location. From that point on this will be the default location of your library.
4. Test the library and when you're sure all is well, trash the one on your internal HD to free up space.
Regards
TD

I'm trying to transfer my pictures from my iPhoto library to my external hard drive. I dragged the iPhoto Library folder into the drive and after waiting a while it says Error Code -36. I need to free up space asap, what should i do?

I'm trying to transfer my pictures from my iPhoto library to my external hard drive. I dragged the iPhoto Library folder into the drive and after waiting a while it says "Error Code -36 The finder cannot complete the operation because some data in 'iPhoto Library' could not be read or written". I need to free up space asap, what should i do??

Yes, the Old Master file has a folder for each year where I find all photos from that specific year. I am attaching a screen shot of the file.
In the meantime i have managed to download all photos (it did not download any video files though in mpg, avi, 3gp, m4v,mp4 and mov format) to a new iphoto library. Unfortunately the photos are quite mixed and often doubled up. I ma considering to purchase iphoto library which checks all duplicates in iphoto. this will save me a lot of time. What do you think?

Photos have been found in the iPhoto Library folder that were not imported

Whenever I start iPhoto, I get an error that says:
5 Photos have been found in the iPhoto Library folder that were not imported. Would you like to import them now?
http://www.fredmccann.com/error.png
If I say no, the dialog goes away but you get it the next time you start iphoto. If I say yes, then iphoto tries to import something (I don't know what) and hangs. I've let it run for two hours and nothing ever gets imported. What's worse is that every time I try to let it import, it increments the number of pictures it thinks is missing. The first time it said 3 photos. I let it attempt an import and it froze. The next start it claimed there were 4. It's up to 5 now and I've figured out that letting it try to import whatever it thinks is missing is a bad idea.
Has anyone seen this problem before? Any suggestions?
iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

booleanman:
Welcome to the Apple Discussions. This Apple KB document may have the solution to your problem: Unimported photos found in Library when iPhoto is launched.
Do you Twango?
TIP: For insurance against the iPhoto database corruption that many users have experienced I recommend making a backup copy of the Library6.iPhoto database file and keep it current. If problems crop up where iPhoto suddenly can't see any photos or thinks there are no photos in the library, replacing the working Library6.iPhoto file with the backup will often get the library back. By keeping it current I mean backup after each import and/or any serious editing or work on books, slideshows, calendars, cards, etc. That insures that if a problem pops up and you do need to replace the database file, you'll retain all those efforts. It doesn't take long to make the backup and it's good insurance.

Where is the iPhoto library folder?

Hello,
I know this sounds kinda dumb, but I can no longer find the iPhoto folder that has my pictures in it. What I mean is, if I go to a Finder window and I click on "Pictures", it accurately lists all of my pictures that are on my MacBook Pro. However, there is no longer a folder there that I can open for my iPhoto pictures---instead, it's an icon of ALL of my iPhoto pictures. Does this make sense what I'm asking?
In other words, let's say I wanted to choose a single photo as my avatar for a certain webpage. Okay, so when the directory window opens up to allow me to navigate to the specific photo I want to use, in the past I have always clicked on "Pictures", and then I could see a FOLDER that I could click on to open it up. Once inside that folder, I saw the long list of picture categories (such as Events, Photos, Last Import, Faces, all of my custom folders, etc, etc, etc). But now, the only choice I have is to click on "iPhoto Library"---all 75 GB's of it! I don't want thousands of photos---I just want ONE. What happened to the folder that used to be there?
I am using iPhoto 11 (the latest updates are in it), Mountain Lion 10.8.1, and a MacBook Pro.
Thank you!

Directly accessing the iPhoto Library from the Finder is not supported, nor has it been on any version of iPhoto.
The First of these is what you want:
There are many, many ways to access your files in iPhoto: You can use any Open / Attach / Browse dialogue. On the left there's a Media heading, your pics can be accessed there. Command-Click for selecting multiple pics.
(Note the above illustration is not a Finder Window. It's the dialogue you get when you go File -> Open)
You can access the Library from the New Message Window in Mail:
There's a similar option in Outlook and many, many other apps. If you use Apple's Mail, Entourage, AOL or Eudora you can email from within iPhoto.
If you use a Cocoa-based Browser such as Safari, you can drag the pics from the iPhoto Window to the Attach window in the browser.
If you want to access the files with iPhoto not running:
For users of 10.6 and later: You can download a free Services component from MacOSXAutomation which will give you access to the iPhoto Library from your Services Menu.
Using the Services Preference Pane you can even create a keyboard shortcut for it.
For Users of 10.4 and 10.5 Create a Media Browser using Automator (takes about 10 seconds) or use this free utility Karelia iMedia Browser
Other options include:
Drag and Drop: Drag a photo from the iPhoto Window to the desktop, there iPhoto will make a full-sized copy of the pic.
File -> Export: Select the files in the iPhoto Window and go File -> Export. The dialogue will give you various options, including altering the format, naming the files and changing the size. Again, producing a copy.
Show File: a. On iPhoto 09 and earlier: Right- (or Control-) Click on a pic and in the resulting dialogue choose 'Show File'. A Finder window will pop open with the file already selected. 3.b.
b: On iPhoto 11 and later: Select one of the affected photos in the iPhoto Window and go File -> Reveal in Finder -> Original. A Finder window will pop open with the file already selected.

Is the iPhoto library supposed to be located in the iCloud Drive folder?

27" iMac (2011) Yosemite / iCloud Drive
Is the iphoto library / database file supposed to be in the iCloud Drive? I expect it to normally be found in the Pictures folder under the active user. If it is not supposed to be there how did it get moved there. The iPhoto library is also locked and is over 200 Gigabytes in size. (see attached image)
My theory is that someone tried to move it to the iCloud Drive, without understanding the limitation.

As long as the user has purchased adequate disk space for the iCloud Drive, they can move their photo library to it. It can be anywhere so long as one modifies iPhoto so it knows where to find it.

Previews folder in the iPhoto Library

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