Can't delete empty iphoto trash

I've read some threads and suspect I have too many to dump all at once, but am unsure about deleting in smaller batches.

To delete in smaller batches you first have to drag the photos out of iPhoto's Trash again. Drag them to an event in the Event section. Then put them back into the trash - in groups of 100 photos at a time - and empty the trash immediately. Don't let it get too full again.

iPhoto is known to lock up if you try to delete a large number of photos at a time. Here are a couple of ways to get out of the predicament you're in:

1 - go into iPhoto's General preference pane and uncheck the Show item counts checkbox:

and then try emptying the iPhoto Trash bin again. This method is iffy but might work for you.

2 -if that fails and you don't use the Rating stars you can do the following: select all of the photos in the trash and Control-click to bringup the contextual menu. There will be the 5 stars for the ratings. Select either 5 or 1 to apply that rating to the photos.

Next create a smart album with the criteria:

selecting the number of start you applied to those in the Trash bin.

Move the photos from the Trash bin to the Library and the Smart Album will immediately be populated with those photos.

You can now select about 100 photos or so at a time and use the Command+Option+Delete key combination to move them back to the Trash bin and empty it. Repeat with groups of about 100 or so photos till they are all deleted. Then delete the Trash bin in the Dock to completely remove them from your hard drive.

OT

Do you get this when you Control-right click?

The stars are grayed out because there are no photos rated. Click on the star you want to rate them with and it will turn all stars up to it white:

Hello! (Pardon my english, it's not my mother language)

I have the same problem with emptying the trash. (I have 2500 pictures there) I have followed the intructions above, but even though my trash seems empty, and all the pictures are now in a smart album, it still sais it has 16 objects... These are invisible and cant be deleted - when I try iPhoto crashes. Can you help me out here...?

What version of iPhoto? Assuming 09 or later...

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 early versions of Library Manager it's the File -> Rebuild command. In later versions it's under the Library menu.)

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

Old Toad,

Thank you for the advise. I had over 7200 pics sitting in my iPoto trash. After struggling for over one year with iPhoto crashes and having to restore iPhoto from TimeMachie, I was finally able to delete the pics in the iPhoto trash. I did select all of the pics in the trash and rated them with 1 Star and then opened a new Smart Folder with the recomened criteria. However, I did not delete from the new Smart folder because I feared that the photos would remain in the Photo Library. Instead, I deleted directly from the iPhoto Library by organizing the all of the photos by rating in decending order. I then deleted 200 photos at a time, periodically deleting my computer trash until all 7,700 unwanted photos were deleted. Great Advise Old Toad!

Right on! Very clever!