iPhoto Library size

Yes it does help because the capacity in "GB or T" is of no consequence to iPhoto. That's just disk space.

Regards

TD

Ok, thanks. I have 90,000 photos and not sure the amount of videos as iphoto does not track them...only iMovie. Anyway, recently I've been crashing and the Library keeps rebuilding then updating the thumbnail and now after 7-8 times of this I have lost data. As it is rebuilding each time a screen pops up that a certain photos (eample DSC08147) is not readablwe and you need to find the original. I probalby did this for 100 photos.

Now It seems I have lost vidoes, blackberry photos and photos I imported from friends phone's photos. I emptied the trash of 1,788 photos yet it still shows the items are there.. lots of different issues.

We have an apple store less then 2 miles away and no one has been able to help me but you seem very knowledgeable.

Thank you, Pamed

Sounds like your database is damaged.

Restore from back up or

Option 1

Back Up and try rebuild the library: hold down the command and option (or alt) keys while launching iPhoto. Use the resulting dialogue to rebuild. Choose to Repair Database. If that doesn't help, then try again, this time using Rebuild Database.

If that fails:

Option 2

Download iPhoto Library Manager and use its rebuild function. (In Library Manager it's the FIle -> Rebuild command)

This will create an entirely new library. It will then copy (or try to) your photos and all the associated metadata and versions to this new Library, and arrange it as close as it can to what you had in the damaged Library. It does this based on information it finds in the iPhoto sharing mechanism - but that means that things not shared won't be there, so no slideshows, books or calendars, for instance - but it should get all your events, albums and keywords, faces and places back.

Because this process creates an entirely new library and leaves your old one untouched, it is non-destructive, and if you're not happy with the results you can simply return to your old one.

Regards

TD

Thank you...It seems I started to have problems when I was travelling nad only had my ipad. I downloaded about 100 photos and when I got home I turn on photo streaming to get the photos into iPhoto. I turned off photo stream when it came out as I like everything very organized by date and event and still do not like how iphoto works on the iPad.

Will try your options....About 5 years ago I loss all metadata and have to re-build a library of about 40,000...it was painful.

Thanks,

Pamed

Hello Terence,

iPhoto is working better based on option 1 but it does occassionly still crash and when I reopen it always go to rebuilding thumnails. Any suggestions?

Also the Library is 396.34GB...are you sure this size does not matter?

Many thanks.

Pamed

The size in GB does not matter to iPhoto, but the amount of free space on the disk sure does to the OS. So, how big is your HD and how much free space on it?

Hi,

I keep on an external HD (WD) 1T and then back that up on another external HD (WD) 1T. iPhoto is 400 GB so should be ok.

thanks

Assuming those disks are formatted correctly (that is, that the are Mac OS Extended (Journaled) ), then size is not an issue.

yes, they are formatted correctly...so I guess I keep backing up (I've had Mac for 15 years so pretty familar with most issues)...and do not worry about each crash and the thumbnail rebuild on each crash.

thanks for your help,

Pamed

hi all,

i have just moved over from pc to mac.

started moving all photo files into iPhoto, by dragging the files from external hdd into iPhoto window.

this triggers the Import function.

having completed this over 3 nights (decided to take it slow) and not a seasoned user of mac OS, i checked on the photo count to ensure that all is in.

the count number shown is there about a little less - i'm guessing that Finder 'Get Info' includes the subfolder into item count.

then, i checked on file size and expecting to be about the same.

it turns out to be Finder 'Get Info' showing 99.66GB used vs iPhoto Library size showing 28.75GB.

this is big big difference!

most of my photos taken with DSLR with sizes of 3-5MB each; and i have 23.6k photos in iPhoto now!

i have read the feedback above.

my guess now is could iPhoto have some compress algorithm and indexing system that reduced the total size of everything?

hope to hear some feedback.

cheers.

No iPhoto does not compress anything

The size iPhoto shows is the size of just your photos

The size the finder shows is the size of the entire library including multiple version of photos, database files, caches, support files, etc

LN

How much free space do you have on your boot drive? It's recommended one keep a minimum of 10-15 GB of free space (20-25 GB if you use iDVD) for optimal system and application performance.

OT

Hello,

I need your help. I'm overseas and just have my old MacBook air with me. I was downloading about 2,000 photos and left the room as at a confernece and when I came back only 200 went in as mac it was low on capacity. I've deleted stuff and now have 13 GB free. Since iphotos are in sequence I can put the next photo number in the spotlight and find one but I cannot see where the balance of the photos are in the computer. They are not on the memory stick anymore even though I did not delete them. mac is OS X 10.7.4

Thank you,

Pamed

Are you using the card reader of the Air to check the memory card for files? If you are and there are none apparent you probably can recover them using MediaRECOVER. The demo version will let to determine if the app can see and recover the photos on the card before you have to purchase it. I have used it a couple of times with total success. In one test I deliberately deleted the files and it recovered all of them.

Hi Larry,

Is that possible for Finder to show 99.66GB while iPhoto has about 30GB?

That is kind of too huge a difference.

But I just want to check if this is norm for everyone and it's how iPhoto works?

Thanks.