jrm1943

Q: Photos display large black exclamation point

How do I get rid of the large black exclamation point that appears when I click on the thumbnail?

MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Dec 19, 2014 6:22 AM

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Q: Photos display large black exclamation point

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  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie Dec 19, 2014 6:47 AM in response to jrm1943
    Level 10 (107,942 points)
    iCloud
    Dec 19, 2014 6:47 AM in response to jrm1943

    Which version of iPhoto do you have?

     

    The exclamation point is an indication, that iPhoto cannot find the original image files of your photos. Either the iPhoto Library has a corruption, or the original images are missing.

     

    What happened, before this problem first occurred? Did you run any cleaning app to free space on your mac? Move your iPhoto Library to a different drive? Upgrade software recently?

    Where is your iPhoto library stored? It needs to be on locally connected drive and not on a network drive. See:  Use locally mounted Mac OS X Extended volumes for your Aperture library

     

    Try, if repairing or rebuilding the iPhoto library will help.  How to rebuild will depend on your iPhoto version, see:  iPhoto 6 and later: Rebuilding the iPhoto library

     

    Make a backup of the iPhoto Library before you try rebuilding.

  • by LarryHN,

    LarryHN LarryHN Dec 19, 2014 8:14 AM in response to jrm1943
    Level 10 (85,113 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Dec 19, 2014 8:14 AM in response to jrm1943

    This indicates a disconnect between the Thumbnail and the original

     

     

    this can be caused by two things

     

     

    1 - User action deleting items from inside the iPhoto  library - can be directly - can be from the All images list (never delete from there) - can be from running cleanup software like MacKeeer, CleanMac2  or other dangerous, defective software that improperly deletes or changes things in the iPhoto library - if you have done any of these things you must restore your backup from before you did them and damaged your iPhoto library - and I recommend getting rid of any "clean up software" ASAP (although being essentially MalWear it is not easy)

     

     

    2 - corruption of the iPhoto library - If it is not #1 then Back up your iPhoto library, Depress and hold the option (alt) and command keys and launch iPhoto - rebuild your database

     

     

    LN