Update to Sonoma 14.1 has disappeared my photos, can't upload from Time Machine

I really regret updating to Sonoma 14.1 because I've lost all my Photos too.

In the future, I don't plan to use the updates. And I may even no longer buy a MAC!

The same thing happened to me and no one at apple has the faintest clue. I wonder if Bill Gates has taken over their programming!

Anyways, here is what I did to recover my photos. Apparently, I had my photos in a different folder than the "pictures" folder located in "Macintosh HD/Users/'your user name"".

I went looking and found mine in "documents/pictures/photo library". Below Photo Library was a small "ignored" noting. Then I copied this file into the "pictures" folder in the previous paragraph and linked my photos to this library.

For linking this photo library I took the following steps:

1. Hold the Option key and double click on the Photos app.
2. Choose the aforementioned "photo library" and open.

You will find all your photos up till the date that you updated with Sonoma.

But now my MacBook is not synchronizing with my phone that is uploading photos to iCloud.!! I probably have to find time to go to an Apple Store "genius bar" and find a "genius" who is actually a certified "genius" to get me out of this mess. Well, I found my photos at least.

Your pictures could be in a different folder than mine as I might have chosen that particular folder by choice when I first set up my apple computer and iCloud - many, many years ago. Look for "photos library" or whatever you might have named your folder. Mine was easy to find because of it's gigantic size.

Hope this helps! Good luck.

It has been very, very frustrating to have my photos disappear from my MacBook pro while fortunately I still have them on my iPhone. I have wasted countless hours trying to fix this but to no avail. Has Apple hired Microsoft Windows software people recently? I burnt my windows computers fifteen years ago and now Apple is doing this to me!!

Same issue and the instructions provide no help in restoring photos. I’ve lost thousands after updating to Sonoma 14.

I have had a few hours chatting to Apple support, he said customers need to call in and log this fault because he had not heard of this issue. Sadly up until now there has been no resolution other than to look at using alternative software to try and repair any corrupt files. That was going to cost £100 so I am awaiting another call back as that was not the answer I was looking for.

It looks like it removed the stored images and auto applied sync to icloud when that was not my option from before.

I don't hold much hope and will look at using time machine moving forward once this has been resolved one way or another. I have lost a lot of old photo's so it's an expensive lesson to learn when it comes down to the sentimental value.

Same thing just happened to me. I'm on the phone to Apple support who claim to have never heard of the problem. I referred her to this page and now she's gone off to do some "research" while I'm holding on. Interestingly, I still have all my photos on my iPhone - it's just my MacBook that they've disappeared from...

Bought a new MacBook Air 5 days ago, everything worked great, till I got an alert to Update to Sonoma 14, as soon as I did that my photos would no longer open and Time Machine will not open. I will be calling Apple but this is a very bitter pill since my MacBook Air I bought in 2016 works better at this point.

To recover your Photos Library from Time Machine let Time Machine restore the library to a local folder on your Mac, as described here: Restore a library from Time Machine in Photos on Mac – Apple Support (UK)

Do not restore the Photos Library tomiCloud Drive. A Photos Library must not be stored on iCloud Drive. Photos cannot open it in a folder that is synced with some cloud service. Restore the Library to your Pictures folder or another local folder. If you need to save storage, restore the library to an external drive with a wired connection (not a NAS), see: Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

I thankfully did a backup on my Mac right after upgrading my phone, so all my photos and videos were there. I had to do a full restore, which meant completely starting from scratch, but once there everything resynced to icloud and all my other devices.

word to the wise - don't trust icloud as your only backup. Routinely back up your devices to your Mac to ensure you never face this issue.

Same here. Not helpful at all. When I try to open the Photos app it says they are in the iCloud drive. I looked - they are. BUT, I don't know how to put them on my Mac. Please hep.

Hi, this is not good! I just spoke to Apple support and apparently it looks like all photo's stored locally have been deleted!

When I updated to Sonoma 14 all my photos were deleted from my iMac drive. Where did they go and how do I get them back. Apple Chat Help was no help at all.

me too