Photos 5.0 OSX 10.15.5 -- How can I recover a single photo mistakenly deleted from a Photos Album?

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Photos 5.0 OSX 10.15.5 -- How can I recover a single photo mistakenly deleted from a Photos Album?

How can I recover a single photo mistakenly deleted from a Photos Library with Photos 5.0 and OS X 10.15.5? Some time ago John Galt and Larry N instructed (1) copy existing library to external drive; (2) restore entire older Photos Library with Time Machine; (3) find and export desired/lost photo to a convenient location; (4) close Older library and delete, (5) reinstall Photos 5.0 library, open and import recovered image. (Apologies to both if I misstated any of their solutions.) A variation: Now, Can I simply start the older Photos library from an external Time Machine backup or must it still be first restored to the internal main drive in its entirety to function? Thanks, all. (Intuitively, starting the older library from an external drive could save some time ... or, it could somehow potentially corrupt the data, making my situation worse.)

(Can I please have aperture back?)

Bert's MacBook 12"

Posted on Jun 8, 2020 4:53 PM

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Answer 1

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BPWMorro Author

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Jun 11, 2020 11:58 AM in response to i_rina

Hello, i_rina; thank you for your response.

My question is not about restoring the entire Photos library; it is about recovering a single deleted image without restoring the complete library. I have previously followed the instructions in the Use Time Machine to restore deleted files or older files - Apple Support, and I was not able to make it work properly -- but, with your suggestion I have tried once again and found it could be done -- an a__ retentive step-by-step is:

The current Photo library must be closed ie, the Photos app is not "open," running.
Using Finder select the current Photo library and then Enter Time Machine
When ™ opens, drive back in time to an appropriate time (ie, one where the Photos library is certain to be before the image was erroneously deleted),
Then open the older Photos library and navigate to where the erroneously deleted image was ... and, with a little bit of luck, it will be there.
Select the image and right-click Restore and select a suitable place (I used Downloads because my Desktop is sloppy with too many files)
Exit Time Machine
Re-Open Photos (not the old library; the current one), and
Import the image from Downloads. Hopefully it will go back into Photos where it was supposed to be; it may be necessary to "force" it into an appropriate folder.

So, i_rina; thank you for your suggestion; I arrived where I needed to be.

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Answer 2

i_rina

Community Specialist

Jun 10, 2020 2:10 PM in response to BPWMorro

Hi, BPWMorro!

Thanks for asking about your deleted picture in the Apple Support Communities. I understand you'd specifically like to know if restoring your Photos library from Time Machine requires you to fully restore it to the app, or if you can pull it off an external drive via Time Machine. I'm happy to help!

The steps in Use Time Machine to restore deleted files or older files - Apple Support walk you through how to access individual files from a Time Machine backup.

Best!

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