Hi. Today I opened my photos app on my macbook and I realised that all my photos from before 2018 are gone. I have no idea when or where they went. I definitely haven't deleted any. How can I get my photos back?
MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.14
Do you have more than one Photos Library? You may want to launch Photos while holding down the options key ⌥, then look at the Library Chooser panel that will appear, if there is more than one Photos Library listed.
You can also search your Mac for items with the filename extension .photolibrary or the "Kind: Photolibrary".
Do you have more than one Photos Library? You may want to launch Photos while holding down the options key ⌥, then look at the Library Chooser panel that will appear, if there is more than one Photos Library listed.
You can also search your Mac for items with the filename extension .photolibrary or the "Kind: Photolibrary".
Bit more information.
(1) What view - Photos/Moments/Memories are you looking at?
(2) Do those photos show up on your other Apple devices - like an iPad or iPhone?
(3) Did you accidentally (or on purpose) delete those earlier photos from another Apple Device that is signed into the same Apple ID to perhaps save space on that other device?
I ask the third question because Apple's iCloud Photo Library is not a true backup service - it is a SYNCING service - and any changes you make to your Photos library - editing and/or deleting - on one connected device will be synced/duplicated on all the devices that share the same Apple ID and therefore the same Apple Photos Library.
1- I’ve checked all views (moments/photos/memories)
2- yes, the photos from my photo app also show up on my iPhone and iCloud. (But what’s changed is that I used to have thousands of photos on my computer - and I know I only have the photos that are on my phone library on my computer library)
Basically, I’m wondering where the photos that were only on my computer (not my phone) go? There were thousands.
3- I’ve definitely deleted some photos - I didn’t realise that if you delete off your phone that it also deletes off your computer. But that still doesn’t explain where the photos that were never on my phone went...
Missing photo's
