User profile for user: Basti Fantasty
Basti Fantasty Author
User level: Level 1
11 points

Photos has lost time/date stamps since merging with iCloud photo storage

Hi all,


For years I maintained a local iPhoto library on my macintosh, importing from my digital camera, and then in later years from my iPhone's.


This iPhoto library was then upgraded to the current Photos library (i think 2015?! whenever the switch happened).


Then two years ago, I decided to move my Photos library into iCloud as it's very convenient. Uh oh...here's when the stress starts:


  • All photos early on in my photos library 9in terms of date) have now lost their dates and have random dates like 1st Jan 1980 (my photos collection on the mac started circa 2000).
  • So all photos from around the time 2000 - 2011 now are affected (not all of them, about 10% of them).
  • This means many of my earlier photos no longer appear in the correct chronological order, which for me, is just a totally annoying disaster.
  • ALL of my recent photos since around 2011/12 are FINE.
  • Yes this happened two years ago...and I never wanted to tackle the problem because I am always busy with work...but now because of COVID i am at home a lot so, I need your recommendations with my plan to fix the issue, what do you all think to this:


I have an iPhoto's library backup on an external drive from around 2015. In this iPhoto library ALL date and time stamps are correct. So do I:


1) On my main mac user account, remove photo synching with iCloud and delete the local library (it's backed up to time machine anyway, so if i cause a disaster i can get it back)


2) Import the 2015 iPhoto library and subsequently it'll be converted to a Photos library.


3) Log into Photos through my web browser at iCloud.com and then delete all photos from 2015 back in time to the beginning.


4) At this point, Photos on my mac will have photos in correct date/time/GPS from 2000 - 2015 and iCloud.com will have all photos from 2015 until present day.


5) On my mac I will then re-check the box instructing to synch with Photos at iCloud.com


What do we think? Plan? Or not a plan? Would really appreciate your help - 2000 - 2015 is about 200 gb of data, and from 2015 - present day is even worse because of the high resolution videos and photos my iPhone takes, that weighs in again at over 200 gb, so i want my plan to be sound as i will have to waste a lot of time just waiting for things to synch/download/upload etc...i don't want to be doing this multiple times...


Looking forward to your suggestions :)

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Jul 18, 2020 4:48 PM

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9 replies
User profile for user: léonie
léonie
User level: Level 10
201,929 points

Jul 19, 2020 1:28 AM in response to Basti Fantasty

Where is the old iPhoto Library that you want to convert to a Photos Library? Photos 5 on Catalina cannot open a Photos Library, if it is on a volume that is not compatible. If your old iPhoto Library is on a Time Machine volume move it to a volume that has not been used for Time Machine backups. The volume needs to be directly pegged in, not a NAS; and the file system format should be MacOS Extended (Journaled) or APFS, not case-sensitive, see: Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support


Photos will not open any iPhoto Library, if the library has been already migrated to Photos. Photos can tell this from the filename extension of the library. Change the filename extension of your iPhoto Library back to .photolibrary, if Photos has changed the extension to .migratedphotolibrary.

After you changed the extension back, hold down the Option key when you open Photos. Then select the iPhoto Library from the list of available libraries. Do not try to import the iPhoto Library. Photos can import photos, but not libraries. You can only open libraries.


One caution: I take it from your original question, that your current Photos Library its syncing with iCloud Photos. Your Time Machine backup of your current Photos Library will not suffice to save the recent photos, if you have been using "Optimise Mac Storage" for your Photos Library. Then not all photos will have been stored locally on your Mac as well, and Time Machine will only have saved the structure of the library (albums, folders, projects), but not all photos. You will need the photos in iCloud to restore the photos to the library, when you restore it from Time Machine. Do not wipe the photos in iCloud, if your Photos Library has been using "Optimise Storage", or the optimised photos will be lost.

See: How to back up an optimized iCloud Photos Library - Apple Community


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User profile for user: léonie
léonie
User level: Level 10
201,929 points

Jul 19, 2020 6:14 AM in response to Basti Fantasty

You could create a second, empty Photos Library and let this library sync with your iCloud Photos Library, see the page on how to create a second library:

Create additional photo libraries in Photos on Mac - Apple Support


Switch Photos to this additional library, then make it the system photos library and enable iCloud Photos for it.


In this temporary iCloud Photos library you can use "Optimise Storage", so the photos will not download to your Mac. Use Smart albums with the rule "date captured is before 1.1.2015" or similar to quickly find the older photos and videos. This way you should be able to delete the photos quickly. Do not let the "Recently Deleted " album get too full. Empty it immediately after deleting 1000 photos or so.


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User profile for user: Basti Fantasty
Basti Fantasty Author
User level: Level 1
11 points

Jul 19, 2020 5:57 AM in response to léonie

Sorry I have one more question:


So I have imported 2001 - 2015 into Photos. Now I logged into photos through iCloud.com and want to delete 2001 - 2015.


Hmmm...that's just not going to work - will take forever using the web interface.


Would I be better creating a second mac user account, and synching iCloud photos with my second mac account. Then throughout photos v5 delete photos/videos from the years 2001 - 2015?


This is such a headache...

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User profile for user: applerockswhee
applerockswhee
User level: Level 1
22 points

Jul 18, 2020 10:36 PM in response to Basti Fantasty

Hello Basti Fantasy,


If by opening an iPhoto Library in Photos you really mean “migrate” then you absolutely can do this.


“You can migrate another library by holding down the Option key when you open Photos. This brings up the Choose Library dialog, which lets you select from the available photo libraries...”


Source: Find your pictures or albums after you migrate a library to Photos

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204887




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User profile for user: Basti Fantasty
Basti Fantasty Author
User level: Level 1
11 points

Jul 19, 2020 5:16 AM in response to léonie

Léonie, that's absolutely perfect - changing the file extension means I can now open/migrate the file into the Photos app - indeed, if I simply double clicked on the iPhoto library to see if an app would open it I got an error, previously, that stated "This library has already been migrated to Photos and cannot be re-opened".


So with regards to your last comment, I accessed an iPhoto library from 2015 on my time machine - back then, iPhoto's did not utilise iCloud storage did it? Or maybe it did, but I was not subscribed to it back then, so I was never synching low res versions of photos to my mac in order to save space - I only started that in 2018.


So my aim would be to use the iPhoto library to restore photos from 2001-2015, which is the period affected by random date/time/GPS data having been altered/erased.


I would then log in to iCloud photos and delete everything in iCloud from 2015 backwards

and then merge my freshly migrated iPhoto's library which is now in Photo's with iCloud to complete the time-line - does that make sense?


Thanks again for informing me about the file extension - I assumed it was going to be something like that, I had opened the package contents of the iPhoto library and was hunting for some sort of file which may have contained a YES/NO variable to enable or disable this re-migration prevention.

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Photos has lost time/date stamps since merging with iCloud photo storage

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