How to restore Photos to a few hours ago?

léonie wrote: If your iCloud Photos Library has used the Optimize feature, you can try to remove the wrong keywords manually. when you select several photos, even thousands at once and open the Info, you can delete a keyword from all selected photos at once by deleting it from the Info.

Of course, you'll delete that keyword from the legitimate uses, as well. But replacing those might be easier than restoring.

While I have occasionally had to restore a Library from Time Machine, I had not thought about dealing with one connected to iCloud. It does complicate things! Thanks, léonie!

If your iCloud Photos Library has used the Optimize feature, you can try to remove the wrong keywords manually. when you select several photos, even thousands at once and open the Info, you can delete a keyword from all selected photos at once by deleting it from the Info.

rick7 wrote: Why wouldn't it just replace the existing library?

Photos syncing works with the Mac, the iPhone, and the iPad. It makes sure that all the devices have the same pictures.

Imagine taking a picture on your phone-- it goes to iCloud. Moments later, before that picture is downloaded to your Mac, you edit a picture on your Mac, and the edits go to iCloud. Since the Mac doesn't have the new iPhone picture, should iCloud erase that from every device? NO! So iCloud gets all the pictures from all the devices, and then downloads the missing ones to each device as needed. It doesn't take away pictures, unless they are intentionally deleted.

That will not work. When you restore the Photos Library from your backup and sync it with iCloud Photos, the restored library will not replace your iCloud Photos Library but be merged into the existing library. You might create many duplicates with different keywords this way.

How are you using iCloud Photos? Are you using "optimize Mac Storage" for iCloud Photos or are you downloading all originals? Only, if all originals have been downloaded from iCloud Photos your Time Machine backup will be a complete backup.

If you are sure, all originals have been downloaded from iCloud, and you can repeat the last import again, you can try the following:

• Restore your Photos Library from the older Time Machine backup, but do not yet overwrite the current library. Open the restored library in Photos and test it, if it is complete.
• Quit Photos and switch back to your current iCloud Photos Library and erase the photos from iCloud completely. Wait for the deletion to sync to all your devices.
• Then make the restored library your iCloud Photos Library.