I have over 2000 thumbnails in a very large collection in my Photos that no longer have originals. I would like to recover the thumbnails and import them as replacement master photos. However, the thumbnails in Catalina do not appear to be easily accessed or organized by date like they used to be when you "show package contents." Does anyone know how I can easily find the thumbnails to retrieve them in Catalina Photos?
iPhoto and maybe earlier versions of Photos would create a small thumbnail version of the original. However, that's no longer done and they are just database entries that are called up when needed.
About the best you can do is make screenshots of them as you view them.
When you open your Photos Library in the Finder by ctrl-clicking it, then use "Show Package Contents2 you will find plenty of thumbnails in the folder resources/renders
~/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary/resources/renders/0/0BCF0317-BC54-4188-B216-8E2A121D885C_1_201_a.jpeg
The JPEGs I am finding there are having a decent size of 2278x3038 pixels. Have a look resources > renders.
It is hard to recognize the thumbnails, because the files have been renamed.
Hello johns.t,
Welcome to the Apple Support Communities, and it appears the original photos are missing from the Photos app on your Mac. I'll do what I can to help.
Restoring the originals would only require downloading them from the source. If this was done with iCloud, you would make sure to turn on 'Download Originals': Download iCloud photos and videos
Otherwise, you could use Time Machine in order to restore the originals before they were removed: Use Time Machine to restore deleted files or older files
Thanks and have a great day.
johns.t,
The only way to retrieve them would be through restoring through Time Machine or downloading the originals if they were stored elsewhere: Use Time Machine to restore deleted files or older files
Take care.
Thanks Sterling. Just to clarify again: I am not trying to retrieve or recover the originals (they are lost forever), I am trying to retrieve the _thumbnails_ of the originals that still exist in my Photos app.
johns.t,
Retrieving any data, including thumbnails, would be the same way as retrieving originals. It require restoring it from where it was backed up. The only ways to do that on the Mac would be to retrieve them from Time Machine or from another location they were saved, like iCloud or another cloud service.
Enjoy.
I have not used a referenced library. I think when transferring my library to an external drive a couple of years ago, I had to resync with iCloud, and in that process some of the originals just disappeared. Very strange. I looked everywhere to no avail. I recreated my Time Machine backup before I noticed anything was missing, so the originals were not there either. I put off grabbing the thumbnails when they were easy to locate, but now they are buried and scrambled, and it looks like screenshots are the only way to create new masters. Thanks for the screenshot advice.
How Photos 5.0 on Catalina Manages original Files and Filenames
With Photos 5.0 on Catalina we have to take precautions to prepare for such an emergency. It is impossible to identify the originals and the thumbnails in the Photos Library any longer, because Photos is not storing the originals and edited versions unmodified, with the original filenames. and not even sorted by the import session. If Photos cannot find and export or photos, we are stuck.
i am backing up all original image files on an external volume, before I import them to Photos.
Photos 5 is the first version of an Apple photo application, that does no longer allow us to extract the originals unmodified from the Photos Library, if it is not possible to launch Photos.
Thanks, but the originals are gone. The database got corrupted somehow long ago and only the thumbnails remain. Need to save the thumbnails. Any ideas how I can easily get them?
Dang! :( That is what I was afraid of. But thanks for the answer.
Thank you. I saw these before I posted. Due to the renaming and also lack of any discernible order, I reached out hoping there was a solution I could not see. But alas...
That is really sad and scary! Thanks for the tip.
How did you lose the originals? Were you running a "referenced" library? If so that one reason we don't recommend a reference library, Photos isn't robust enough with referencing as Aperture was.
If you did reference the originals this user tip should be of interest: Disadvantages of a Referenced Library in Photos for Mac
You might be able to find a screenshot app that will open each time over the same area so you could quickly scroll thru the images with the arrow keys and take screenshot quickly.
Thumbnails of missing originals in Catalina Photos
