Trashed iPhoto prefs now 10,000 phoptos gone

My iPhoto was running really slow. I had about 10,000 photos on it. The spinning beachball was happening everytime I tried to do anything. I restarted several times, rebuilt permissions. I then thought that I would trash the iphoto prefs . I did this but discovered to my horror that I had no photos in my library. I have a back up on an external drive but some photos, not really important but, I would love to be able to get them back if possible.
I did not think that trashing the prefs would have such a devestating effect. Any help would be great.
thanks
Dave

Hi Dave, navigate to the Pictures folder on your computer and see if the iPhoto Library folder is there. do you have another name for the library other than iPhoto Library? if you do, then that was the problem.
If the library is in the Pictures folder, or wherever you had stored it, then hold down the Option key and keep it held down while launching iPhoto until you get a message screen. In that screen click the "choose" button and navigate to your library folder, select it, and hit "open"

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Trashed iPhoto prefs now 10,000 phoptos gone

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