iPhoto and Photo

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Level 1

8 points

iPhoto and Photo

Hello, my husband, recently, updated our Mac mini to Catalina something because our Mac was rendered useless. We literally could not even surf the Internet or watch a movie nor listen to Pandora. I’ve been backing up my iphoto and I’m a professional photographer to an external hard drive. I’ve now transferred it from the hard drive onto the new updated Mac mini desktop that has been updated and PHOTOS refuses to open it. I’ve gone through the system itself and can retrieve photos only UP until 2017, which I believe is the time that Apple decided to change iPhoto to Photo. Please tell me how I can retrieve all my photos since 2017. I don’t like to criticise but an update should always only benefit a user and it shouldn’t be complicated to transfer a photo library onto a computer. It should be a simple system in place and not require any special activity. Please help me and telling me how I can retrieve my photos from 2017 onwards. Thank you

Posted on Sep 3, 2023 6:55 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

FoxFifth

Level 10

478,151 points

Sep 3, 2023 7:11 PM in response to ECSEKE

The final release of iPhoto was in 2015. The Photos app was released with macOS Yosemite 10.13.6 in April of 2015.

With macOS Catalina, if you hold down the option key while opening the Photos app it will give you the option to select an iPhoto library and should open and convert it to Photos. I can't tell from your post whether you tried that or not.

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

203,511 points

Sep 4, 2023 12:00 AM in response to ECSEKE

How large is the old iPhoto Library? The progress bar may not be updated for many hours, even days, if the library is very large. Just let it run.

And where is the iPhoto Library that you are trying to migrate to Photos? Did you copy it to the internal drive of your new Mac? Or is it on an external drive? If your iPhoto Library on an external drive, ensure, that the drive has the correct file system format and the "Ignore ownership" flag is set. See: Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 3

Old Toad

Level 10

217,812 points

Sep 5, 2023 8:53 AM in response to ECSEKE

As a test launch Photos with the Option key held down and create a new, test library in the same location as your current library. If you can then try opening your original library.

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Answer 4

Sep 4, 2023 9:14 AM in response to ECSEKE

Unless something is really wrong it usually is simple.

You can try iPhotoLibraryManager, a paid program that might work a little better:

https://www.fatcatsoftware.com/iplm/

You can dive into the iPhoto library package and pull the originals out and import them to Photos. Note that you will lose your edits.

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Answer 5

Old Toad

Level 10

217,812 points

Sep 4, 2023 10:46 AM in response to ECSEKE

How big is your library and how long did you let it site at 2%?

Where is the library located? If ons an external drive the drive MUST BE formatted either APFS for SSDs or OS X Extended (journaled) for HDDs.

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Answer 6

ECSEKE Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 4, 2023 7:33 AM in response to ECSEKE

I appreciate the replies but nothing works. It actually migrated the library to 100% then showed me an error code and nothing was there. If I check the library which I moved from the external hard drive onto my desktop and look at package contents the last ten years I find are not consistent and basically all my events are gone I had about 400 now can find only 200. I’ll never use apple again. A transfer should be simple not complex. I’m hoping someone here in Hong Kong can help me recover from Time Machine but I’m not holding my breath. We needed to update the computer, Mac mini so that we could use the internet but now photos and events with my dad who is gone and my photography even with a backup can’t be restored. Plus Photos creates more folders all the time I don’t know why. Normally it should be just a transfer and upload. Another bizarre thing is I’ve got an iPhoto and a Photos library 2, but they are literally duplicates yet slightly different in size and still missing over 15,000 photos. Now the Mac mini created a third. It’s just an exhausting system that doesn’t work.

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Answer 7

ECSEKE Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 4, 2023 7:09 PM in response to Old Toad

It actually went to 100% then said can’t open and when I did it was empty. I don’t understand either why I don’t see many events I created when I do a (package contents) check of it on my desktop. I hope Time Machine will have a good backup of it and that I can get a professional to retrieve it for me. I had over 60,000 photos. I also don’t understand why I have an IPhoto and Photo backup but they seem the same both missing my last ten years of events. Thank you.

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