Where is Photos Library?

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Level 1

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Where is Photos Library?

A Dutch-speaking friend has just installed Catalina. Upon starting Foto's (the name in a Dutch system for Photos), the library was repaired and the contents eventually displayed. The info window shows the standard library name (Foto's Library), the number of photos (9099) and videos (473) and indicates a size of 26.72 GB. Looks good.

However, the Foto's Library is not located in the standard folder Afbeeldingen (Dutch for Pictures) and can't be found with a Finder search. Furthermore, when the Foto's app is started with the option key held, in order to be able to select a library, the list of available libraries is empty.

Any idea where the Foto's Library might be, or how it can be made to show itself.

(The photos are not synced with iCloud.)

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Jan 3, 2020 12:47 AM

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Answer 1

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Old Toad

Level 10

211,009 points

Jan 3, 2020 9:53 AM in response to davidneale1

Download and run Find Any File to search for a file named "historicalmarker.plist" in the file name. This is a file that is found only in Photos libraries.

FAF can search areas that Spotlight can't like invisible folders, system folders and packages. If there's a Photos library hiding somewhere on your hard drive FAF will find it. The location will be shown at the bottom of the search results window.

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Answer 2

davidneale1 Author

Level 1

86 points

Jan 3, 2020 1:50 PM in response to Old Toad

It was deep down inside an unnamed folder on the desktop, filled with stuff "to be thrown away."

I'm glad I found it (in its containing folder were an additional 2 Photo Library files), but I don't understand how Photos found it (it must have done so, for the contents were displayed), nor why it was not shown when I opened Photos with the option key pressed (as I wrote above, nothng at all was shown in the list of available libraries).

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