Re: Missing Photo Library In Mac
Sanora Ngueyn
Hold down the option key while starting photos. Is your library listed in the pane that comes up. If so, open it. Are any other libraries listed - open each in turn to see if any contain your library.
If you click on the found libraries in turn, the location will be shown at the bottom of the finder window. Open each one to see if they contain your images. (Use the option key to start photos then select the library)
If you don't find your library this way, then you can restore it from time machine. Don't try to drag/drop from the time machine drive though. You need to "enter time machine" from the menu bar icon, and then navigate to a date when your library was there, select the library and click restore.
If you have all your pictures currently in iCloud, and just want to synchronise them with a Photos library on your mac, the easiest way is to create a new empty library on your mac, (in the pictures folder is the normal place). Set this new library as the system library, and make sure iCloud photos is enabled, and your mac will then download everything from iCloud photos library into your newly created library.
Hold down the option key while starting photos, and click "create new". Name it Photos Library.photoslibrary, and locate it in your pictures folder. (First screenshot). (If there is already a library with that name in the pictures folder, you could just use that one rather than creating a new one)
Thanks Tony, I still have some problems - yes it was listed on the "option open" pane but it is only on my SuperDuper and only up to March 2019. I could not find it on my Time Machine - yes I do have a 1TB separate hard drive for Time Machine.
Since I save everything to iCloud, - as well as back up to Super Duper and Time Machine - how do I get back my Photos from iCloud - they are all up to date on my iPhone and iPad. I am only a basic user - not really confident with the more complicated aspects. Any suggestions are most appreciated.
Thank you for this extremely helpful and successful solution Tony. I apologise for the delay in getting back to you but I have had some serious distractions and have just successfully got my photos back on my Mac this morning.
The iPhoto application loads your Photo Library file after the application itself loads. You can have as many Photo Library files as you wish. By default, when you launch iPhoto, it loads whichever library file you had opened the last time you used iPhoto.
So, like I tell everyone that I help, I still can't give you first-hand knowledge of how to deal with your problem since I've never even been able to reproduce the situation. And often, I never hear back from them, so I never find out exactly what fixed their particular problem.
But, what I can tell you from everything that I've heard from people with these problems, and from those that I have helped, is that in a few rare cases, iPhoto libraries seem to go missing during upgrades of iPhoto library files when a major version of iPhoto was just installed, and when their iPhone is connected to their computers and is doing various kinds of syncs and imports.
If it's at all possible, you moved your missing library file to an external drive, be sure to attach it to your computer and turn it on so this drive can be part of the search routines we are going to try below.
These search methods are listed in order of the way I would like you to try them. You are welcome to skip one if you would like to opt for a better one down the list. Just know the further down the list you go, the more difficult or time-consuming they become.
Like in the trash suggestions above, be sure to sort by file size to help bring the largest files to the top. Your library file is likely 20+ gigs, so it will be very hard to miss in a sorted column of file sizes. It will either end up at the very top or the very bottom of the list, depending on how you have the file sizes sorted.
Both applications have a well-thought-out and beautiful interface, and I've used both of them and recommend them equally. Each offers a free trial if you download it directly from their company website: Nektony and Software Ambience Corp.
You might find less expensive data recovery software if you scour the internet for deals. But, I think in this case, you really will get what you pay for like the saying goes. And this is still way cheaper than hiring someone for their time and expertise to attempt a data recovery for you. The great thing is you will also receive email, chat, and phone technical support from Prosoft if you have any questions during your recovery process.
So, if you are thinking about using any kind of recovery software, try not to wait very long while making up your mind. It's very important that you do this as soon as you can to ensure the recovery of as many files as possible.
Your absolute last resort would be bringing your computer or your internal drive to a forensic recovery specialist. They can really be costly, especially if they have to take your drive into a clean room and take it apart. And, even with the cost, there is no guarantee they can recover all your missing or deleted files.
I personally haven't used any recovery services myself or know anyone that has. If you or someone you know has and can recommend one, please let me know through my contact form, so I can build a reputable list here for those needing one.
I am using iphoto to store my pictures. One week ago the message comes up from iphoto and said something about I have to choose one of three choices. Unfortunately I did not recognized all the choices. I pressed one of them, and all my pictures disappear from iphoto, and the iphoto created new library.
Actually, I have tried to access to my old pictures but I could not. Somehow, I went to iphoto file than contents than thumbnails than the folders in years like folder name 2011, 2012, 2013, and each folder has one or two pictures, which is I have found all my old pictures there.
If more than one library has the same name, the way to tell the difference between them is to click on each one, and note the library name and path where the file is stored that shows up below the list.
I want to follow the instructions from how to avoid getting missing file error in photos, so my question now is,
Is there some way to get all missing files from Photos library? It is going to be impossible to double click every photo to find out if it is missing. I need just the directories, i can place them back one by one and consolidate.
Long answer: I had the same question, and it turns out that the photo library is backed by a SQLite database under the covers. On your machine, you can find the database file at /database/photos.db. There's a table called RKMaster, with a row for every photo, and a fileIsReference column that tells you whether the photo is "external" or not.
Note that the table also includes an isMissing column, but this is not good enough by itself. It only tells you about the files that Photos "knows" are missing, because you tried to double-click them, or use them in some way. If you simply delete a file from disk, but don't try to access it in Photos, the isMissing column will be false.
That will only give you the UUID of each file, not the path. However, once RepairPhotosBookmarks is integrated into OSXphotos (due shortly) you don't need the file path because that powerful app will be able to handle those missing files for you.
I've found that the isMissing flag doesn't mean that the image is gone, just that it's not currently on disk. Using the Python script here, I was trying to copy all of my images out of Photos for backup. I noticed that several images were not being copied, and it turned out it was because they had the isMissing flag on them. But, I was able to take the image name (e.g., IMG_1234.JPG), search for it in Photos, and it found the image. And when I opened the image in Photos for viewing, there was a progress circle shown in the lower right corner (as though it was loading the file from somewhere), and when I checked the folder inside the Photos library on disk, sure enough, the missing file was now there.So now the mystery is, where are these "missing" files stored, and how do I access them (without having to visit each & every one within Photos)?And has anyone reverse engineered & documented the schema of the Photos SQLLite DB, including what the various fields mean, like "isMissing"? I haven't been able to find it myself.
(Note: The solution appears to only work if the Photos library has been converted from an older iPhoto library, and the images were missing already at that time. I leave it here for educational purpose, but have added another answer with a more thorough detection.)
It only works if Photos has already detected that the file is missing. I don't know what causes this detection, it's just that I found a Photos library where this was the case, and then this script worked. But when I tried to reproduce this with another library, where I deleted the original files (and also made sure they were not recreated, which happens when they came from iCloud), even relaunching Photos with forcing a library repair would not update the image properties to a state where my script would detect them as missing. Maybe this only works with libraries that were converted from former iPhoto libraries (which I know the first one was).
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