Old photos missing and old videos unplayable

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Old photos missing and old videos unplayable

Old photos that once upon a time were viewable in iPhoto now show up at blank images (with a filename). Old videos (also previously playable in older versions of iPhoto/Photo software) give errors stating 'Cannot Play Video - Photos cannot play this video because it uses an unsupported format." Most, if not all, of the photos/videos were taken using iPhones (going back several generations). All of the affected photos/videos were taken before 2013. None on the photos/videos before 2105 are in the Masters folder within the 'Photos library.photoslibrary' folder. Where can I find the folders of these older images/videos, so I can retrieve them? What else can be done to figure out where these files actually are on my computer?

Posted on Mar 21, 2019 8:58 PM

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léonie

Level 10

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Mar 22, 2019 3:49 AM in response to sfwilli

Do you still have the old iPhoto Library that yo migrated to Photos? Perhaps on a backup drive?

Have you searched your Mac for the filenames of the missing items? Use the trial version of Find Any File - it can search everywhere, even inside library packages. Here is a download link: http://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/index.php

Many of my older videos are showing a similar "Unsupported Format" problem. I am converting them by exporting the original from Photos and reimporting it after opening it in QuickTime Player to convert it.

This document lists the image formats that will soon be completely deprecated. It is essential to convert all files that are using legacy image formats or video formats before the next version of MacOS X will be released: About incompatible media in iMovie for macOS - Apple Support

But what happened, before you could no ,longer see the the missing images? Did it happen right after the migration from iPhoto to Photos? Or after you moved the Photos Library to a new location? Did you perhaps run a cleaning application to remove duplicates? Some "cleaning" applications will damage the library badly.

If images and videos are missing form the Masters folder, it can be caused by iCloud Photos and the "Optimize Storage" option. You may want to check, if iCloud Photos has become enabled. In that case the optimize Option may have removed large original files to free storage and you need a working Wi-Fi connection to access the originals.

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Old photos missing and old videos unplayable

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