how to easily clean broken photos from itunes library

Question

Level 1

19 points

how to easily clean broken photos from itunes library

hi everyone,

i'm getting really frustrated with this iphoto thing, i always had all my photos organised by folders on my Pictures folder and external hds... and for some crazy reason i decided to give it a go at iphoto so i started organising them on iphoto... but now my biggest pain is i don't carry all my HDs with my photos all the time... i have about 5 HDs with photos plus some photos on my computer... and my wife's computer

That is really annoying, as every time i open iphone and i don't have everything connected it keeps popping 125 gazillion errors saying server not connected, hd not connected... drives me insane and takes me 20 mins to click cancel on all of them until i'm able to use iphoto....

i'm at a stage that i have 2 options:

1. find a way to delete all those broken links from the DB and only use iphoto for my local photos...
2. go back to my old system that worked pretty well since than, but than how do i remove all the photos that are on iphoto????

i think apple really stuffed up on this, since there are a lot of people in this forum with the same problem...
there should be a command on iphoto... search and delete broken links...

can anyone help???? Please!!!!!

cheers,
dan

mac book pro 17", Mac OS X (10.6.5), powerbook G3, cinema display 30", ipod [mini, nano, video], iphone 3G, 3GS, 4, imac, ipad

Posted on Dec 9, 2010 5:39 AM

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Answer 1

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,254 points

Dec 9, 2010 6:11 AM in response to dankron

but than how do i remove all the photos that are on iphoto????

File -> Export

To export Event by Event or Album by Album check out *_[iPhoto to Disk|http://www.iphototodisk.com/index.html]_*

Averaged out of the cost of iLife, iPhoto is a $16 app. For that you get a lot, but not everything. It definitely works best with a Managed Library (and from your description of your issue, you're running a Referecenced one?) stored on the local Mac.

If you must have photos spread over 5 disks then you might consider having 5 managed Libraries - one on each disk. That will avoid all these issues.

Other than that check out Aperture which is far more flexible at dealing with these kinds of set-ups, and will easily migrate your iPhoto set up.

Regards

TD

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Answer 2

dankron Author

Level 1

19 points

Dec 10, 2010 3:23 PM in response to Yer_Man

thanks TD, unfortunately my macbook pro only has 500Gb of space and i have about 6TB of photos... so storing them locally is not really an option...

I'll try this export app... might solve the issue...

cheers,
DK

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Answer 3

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,254 points

Dec 10, 2010 4:29 PM in response to dankron

If you have that many photos then I suggest strongly that you go for Multiple Libraries or migrate to a more powerful application.

You know that you can run an iPhoto Library from any disk formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled), right?

Regards

TD

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Answer 4

Mar 15, 2014 5:00 PM in response to dankron

Ok so I know this post is very old for me to be answering now, but it's still one of the top hits on google for "fixing broken links in iphoto."

Anyway, so I had the same problem where I deleted numerous photos from my computer. (slideshows I've made for friends) Yet their thumbnails were still showing up in iPhoto like they still existed. Making it difficult to see which ones were technically broken wasn't until I previewed the image in full frame by hitting space-bar that iPhoto would prompt saying "photo is missing"

So as I was searching my iPhoto library files looking for duplicates I found the thumbnails folder. For some reason I thought these were duplicate photos so I deleted them all, which turned out to be a helpful trick! Because upon going back into iPhoto, the program began re-creating all of the thumbnails I just deleted. Which turned out to be a great work-around. Now the photos that were broken appeared as empty grey squares. Figured I'd just to pay it forward and possibly help someone else.

15" MBP
Mountain Lion
iPhoto '11 9.4.3

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