Several months ago I upgraded my OS on my Mac and it emptied out my photo library. I don't remember which upgrade it was that lost all my photos; I am currently running Sonoma 14.4.1.
Does anyone have any suggestions or should I take it to the genius bar at the Apple Store?
[Re-Titled By Moderator]
iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.15
michaeljhubbard wrote: did try to access the photos library from the Pictures folder of my home folder, but it is empty.
That's the right place. You didn't say--are you using iCloud Photos to synchronize Libraries? If you are, then what do you see at iCloud.com?
It's possible that the original Library was accidentally moved to another folder. You can do a Finder search to hunt for it. A Photos Library has a suffix of ".photoslibrary" with the "." leading it, so you can put that in the search field in Finder like this:
I have several Libraries, and you can see the path to the selected one at the bottom of the search window.
MacOS updates don't, on their own, erase Photos Libraries, but if the Library was in an unusual place, Photos might lose track. Speaking of unusual places, have you looked in iCloud Drive (or Mobile Documents) in the Finder's sidebar?
michaeljhubbard wrote: did try to access the photos library from the Pictures folder of my home folder, but it is empty.
That's the right place. You didn't say--are you using iCloud Photos to synchronize Libraries? If you are, then what do you see at iCloud.com?
It's possible that the original Library was accidentally moved to another folder. You can do a Finder search to hunt for it. A Photos Library has a suffix of ".photoslibrary" with the "." leading it, so you can put that in the search field in Finder like this:
I have several Libraries, and you can see the path to the selected one at the bottom of the search window.
MacOS updates don't, on their own, erase Photos Libraries, but if the Library was in an unusual place, Photos might lose track. Speaking of unusual places, have you looked in iCloud Drive (or Mobile Documents) in the Finder's sidebar?
Did you keep your Photos Library on an external volume or in a folder that has been syncing with a cloud service? Photos on Sonoma is no checking, if the library is in a supported location and will not work with a library in a Location where the library might get damaged. I suspect thst Photos may have created a new, empty library because it could no longer use the original library.
In that case you may want to search for your original Photos Library. It may just need moving to a different folder or external drive.
If your Photos Library is on an unsupported external drive, then you need to, right away, stop trying to access it with Photos. There may be continued corruption. If this is the case, as léonie thought it might be, you should try to move it to a properly formatted drive before continuing to trying to use it. See this:
Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support
Richard,
Thank you for your suggestion.
I don't have an unsupported external drive, as far as I know. I did try to access the photos library from the Pictures folder of my home folder, but it is empty.
Thank you for your help. I have found some of the photos from some years, but not all, yet.
Photos library emptied post macOS update.
