Q: the recently deleted folder has stopped appearing when I delete photos
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Sep 16, 2016 11:49 PMby jshire,some additional info:
when I look at the size of 'photos' in my home folder it still says 174gb. However when I look at my drive in disk utilities it shows 'pictures' at 18gb & a massive 'other' folder at 180gb - not sure if this has anything to do with the issue ? could the images actually have been deleted from photos but are now somewhere else on the system ?
(I say this again - to not have a simple one step way to delete & free up space on ones hard drive is either a bug with photos or some very dodgy method of Apple forcing consumers to spend more money on larger drives, new computers etc)
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Sep 16, 2016 11:52 PMby jshire,I do thank you for your time in replying Leonie but I have already said a number of times that I have already deleted the old iphotos library & have never had aperture. To clarify again: all I have on my macbook is a photos app - no other photograph / image storage app.
all methods of deleting images from photos DOES NOT free up disc space.
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Sep 17, 2016 12:33 AMby léonie,See this for "Other" storage: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202867
Is your Mac a MacBook or MacBook Pro and are you using Time Machine? Then the big "Other" could be local snapshots - Time Machine backups made and stored locally, because you have not made a regular time machine backup for some time. These will be removed, once you run Time Machine again to create a regular backup, or if you need the storage. The local snapshots can be confusing, since deleting a large amount of photos will result in moving them to the local snapshots, and we do not see, that storage has been freed immediately.
Deleting photos as described by Gail should be making your Photos Library smaller.
You seem to be comparing the total free storage on your Mac before deletion and after deletion of photos, but have you compared the size of your Photos Library before and after you delete photos? Does the size of of the Photos Library decrease, after you delete photos? I want to find out if there is some system trouble or a problem with your Photos Library.
Are you now seeing a "Recently Deleted" folder if you delete selected photos with command-delete or is this album still hiding?
If you cannot make the "Recently Deleted Album" appear, repair your Photos Library (Repair your library - Photos Help).
If deleting photos does show the Recently deleted album, but the library size stays the same, when you empty this album, your photos may be stored outside the Photos library. Have all your photos been imported with the option "Copy items to the Photos library"? Importing to Photos without copying into the library means that you are managing the photos yourself - they are stored outside the library, and Photos ccannot delete them, when you delete photos from Photos.
Are you using iCloud Photos in any way?
The only other reason I know of for the size of a Photos Library not decreasing after deleting photos is a damaged library. If you have been using cleaning applications like "CleanMy Mac", Photos may no longer be able to retrieve the photos for deletion.
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Sep 17, 2016 12:34 AMby jshire,after numerous searches online & digging around on my hard drive i've found that the 'masters' folder is still the same size as before - so command-delete on photos does NOT remove them totally.
so, before deleting the images from the masters folder I tried to work out if doing so would have any adverse effects (other than removing the images in question) - I can't seem to find an understandable answer to this. I also tried to find out if removing an image from masters would, somehow, prevent one from re-importing it later (for example: from an external hard drive back up of that months photos etc) - again, no answer online. It would seem daft if it did, but Apple do seem to be coming up with some very odd structures & protocols. I also tried copying a photo from the masters folder, placing it on my desktop, deleting the image from masters & then dragging the copy in to photo again - however it seems you can't copy or drag images from masters onto anything - its been hanging for about 5 minutes on a 1mb image !
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Sep 17, 2016 12:43 AMby jshire,(see my earlier reply posted before I read your most recent one)
to save time can I simply say I am quite mac savvy so i've done all the obvious things & I use photos in the standard way - connect card / camera - photos opens, import images etc. I also. regularly backup my photos from photo by connecting an ehd, opening photo & each new album & selecting all & then dragging said images into a similarly named new standard folder on the hard drive (ie. a plain folder not a photo album) - this links to my earlier reply: if I now delete an image from the masters folder on the macbook will it still be there on the ehd in the normal folder & can I re-import it ? I can't think how / why I wouldn't be able to but....)
timemachine / snapshots: not really sure about this one as i've not come across this snapshot space use issue before. I do use time machine however I have never been able to get time machine (on any mac by the way) to only update updated folders, if you see what I mean. For example, I connect a macbook with 200gb of data on the drive to the ehd where I store time machine backups. Lets say since the last backup i've added 20gb of that 200gb - instead of time machine saying it will take x amount of time to backup because its only going to update with that 20gb it tells me its going to back up the entire 200gb again. I've even had this when using ehd's that then become full with time machine backups - at that point TM is supposed to delete older versions & automatically back up with the newer one, but it never does, it only says 'there is not enough space on the drive' etc.
photos: to clarify, the size of the photo library does NOT decrease - it stays the same.
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Sep 17, 2016 12:53 AMby jshire,pps. ok, so this is odd but might help some folks with the same issue.
as I said I digged around online & on my hard drive. I found a video online about how to access library/cache info in el captain. In there I found an iphoto folder that according to finder had a few oddly named items in it & was only around 50mb. I deleted it to the trash anyway as I no longer have iphoto. When I emptied the trash it took a while & said there were 13,000+ items to delete (nb. I have emptied the trash a number of times whilst going through this process of trying to free up space by deleting images from photo & of course no photo files were in the trash. Only when adding this odd iphoto folder from the library folder did these 13,000 items seem to be available to delete from trash). So I emptied the trash & the 100gb of space has now appeared on my hard drive ! odd indeed & seemingly not something i've seen mentioned anywhere before, or indeed to have any sense to it !
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Sep 17, 2016 1:13 AMby léonie,I deleted it to the trash anyway as I no longer have iphoto. When I emptied the trash it took a while & said there were 13,000+ items to delete
It looks like you finally tracked down the hard linked originals from your iPhoto library and now the deletion form your Photos Library is taking effect. The 50MB folder has probably been a symbolic lik to the place where iPhotos originals have been hiding.
Local snapshots are explained here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204015
But since you are not usingTime Machine, they are irrelevant in your case.
- however it seems you can't copy or drag images from masters onto anything
You should be able to copy to another Finder folder by option-dragging, but Photos refuses to import from packages.
If you deleted photos directly from the Masters folder, you may later encounter error messages about missing originals.
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Sep 17, 2016 1:24 AMby jshire,léonie wrote:
I deleted it to the trash anyway as I no longer have iphoto. When I emptied the trash it took a while & said there were 13,000+ items to delete
It looks like you finally tracked down the hard linked originals from your iPhoto library and now the deletion form your Photos Library is taking effect. The 50MB folder has probably been a symbolic lik to the place where iPhotos originals have been hiding.
Local snapshots are explained here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204015
But since you are not usingTime Machine, they are irrelevant in your case.
- however it seems you can't copy or drag images from masters onto anything
You should be able to copy to another Finder folder by option-dragging, but Photos refuses to import from packages.
If you deleted photos directly from the Masters folder, you may later encounter error messages about missing originals.
can you explain a bit more about the 'if you deleted photos directly from the masters....' - do you mean that if, as mentioned above, I copy all the images from a photo album onto an external hard drive & then delete those images in photo & also from the masters folder if they're still there, when I come to view those images on my external hard drive just using finder there could be a problem ? or indeed if I then decide to re-import said images ?
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Sep 17, 2016 1:37 AMby léonie,when I come to view those images on my external hard drive just using finder there could be a problem
On your external hard drive you should be albe to use the copied files without a problem like any image files, since they are copies.
The problem will be the Photos library. Deleting files manually from the package may leave it in an inconsistent state. The internal database files will still link to the deleted file. That can make reimporting problematic. I tested this with an earlier version of Photos. The duplicate check gave an error message and I could not even reimport the file. I could not delete the photo with the missing Master either, because of the warning "cannot find the original". I had to repair the test library.
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Sep 17, 2016 3:14 AMby jshire,hmmm, well if that is true then what your basically saying is that Apple have deliberately created an app that, once imported, means all your photos are, in effect, trapped in that app & deleting them means you might never be able to reimport them to your mac. I wouldn't put that past them but if true they should be investigated & probably sued by millions of users for creating an app that takes control of private data & messes with it in ways that mean the individual cannot regain control.
surely there has to be a safe way to delete photo images from ones macbook without compromising the actual images themselves that one has stored elsewhere ?
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Sep 17, 2016 5:47 AMby léonie,I think you misunderstood my comment. The photos you copied out of your photos library are safe and you can edit then to your heart's content in any photo applications. You can even import them into a new photos library.
The problems I mentioned will occur, if you try to import them into the same Photo Library that you willfully modified by removing items without using the Photos user interface. That library will be corrupted and the modifications done in the Finder may be causing problems.
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Sep 17, 2016 6:08 AMby jshire,how have I corrupted the library ? I have deleted the images as per the methods Apple say to use ! To clarify, deleted the images only in albums or the all photos folder does not free up space on the hard drive ! the only way to do that is to delete them in a way that means they also are removed from the 'masters' folder. If you are really saying that any deletion that removes the images from the masters folder will cause problems then do let me know how to delete images that will actually free up space but not cause any corruption risk. thanks
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Sep 17, 2016 6:19 AMby léonie,how have I corrupted the library ? I have deleted the images as per the methods Apple say to use !
I have been referring to your comment here:
I also tried copying a photo from the masters folder, placing it on my desktop, deleting the image from masters & then dragging the copy in to photo again - however it seems you can't copy or drag images from masters onto anything - its been hanging for about 5 minutes on a 1mb image !
It is difficult in this discussion to to keep the references between questions and answers clear.
Reimporting the same photo again into a library where the photo had been surgically removed directly from the Masters folder may not work, because the library will be inconsistent.
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Sep 17, 2016 6:43 AMby jshire,it is indeed.
sorry, but I still don't get this. If I copy a photo to an ehd surely it is simply a jpeg file & not 'linked' in any way to photos. Furthermore if Apple have designed an app that takes a users jpeg & somehow encodes it so that it only works in their app that would be very dodgy indeed.
I can't also see how what you say could be the way it works because surely millions of users delete photos from photo at some point & then, some time later, decide they need the image again so find it on their ehd's & reimport - that's about as standard a procedure as I can think of for managing photos.
