I imported a bunch of photos from my phone to iPhoto but now they're gone

I stupidly said yes and deleted them. They're gone now but they're also not in iPhoto.

Where did you look in iPhoto? Sometimes the events are sorted incorrectly and you cannot find the newly added events. Try if sorting the events by date will bring your new events to the top of the list:

If that does not bring your new events back, rebuild your iPhoto Library as described by Old Toad:

Rebuild iPhoto Library for iPhoto Version '11

After rebuilding, your iPhoto library may contain an event named "Recovered Photos" or similar. That is iPhoto's "Lost and Found" for missing photos. Look there for any photos that still might be missing.

To look into your iPhoto Library select one of the most recently imported photos that you can see and uns the command "File > Reveal in Finder". Only look, don't move or modify the photos you are seeing in iPhoto's Masters flder.

How to Access Files in iPhoto

Regards

Léonie

Brian,

you are still stuck in the Import panel. Import the one photo thatyou are seing, so that phone can bejected and you can get back to the source list of your library. Then try to sort the events the way I have shown to look for your missing new events.

Léonie

It just says "To get started with iPhoto..."

That is an indication that iPhoto has created a new iPhoto library and is not using the one you imported your photos into.

Is there a way to find the library folder and browse it even if I can not even successfully import a single photo because that's where I'm at.

To search for all iPhoto libraries on your system, use a tool like the Easyfind or the free FindAnyFile

http://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/

Then search for all files named "Library6.iPhoto". Every iPhoto Library contains such a file. If you find them, you will be right inside the iPhoto Library package.

The enclosing folder is the iPhoto Library package and should be called something like "iPhoto Library.photolibrary".

I found my photos. They're in /Users/user/Pictures/iPhoto/Librayr.photolibrary/Previews

Then there should also be a folder "/Users/user/Pictures/iPhoto/Librayr.photolibrary/Masters"

or "Originals", if you are having an older iPhoto version.

Is this folder missing? That folder should contain the original Master image files. The preview folder contains only scaled down previews to be shared with other applications.

If the "Masters" folder is missing or empty, you may have imported the photos as referenced - is the flag in the "Preferences >Advanced" panel "Importing > Copy items to the iPhoto Library" disabled? Then will iPhoto not copy the photos into the iPhoto library, but leave them in there original folder where you are importing from.

I need a special tool just to access my own photos?

I suggested "Find any File" because it is easier to use than the Finder's search - the results there will depend, on what you have included in your Spotlight index.

To search using the Finder, open a Finder window; press the key combination ⌘F, and then set the search window to search "This Mac" and "Kind is 'Photo Library'"

Only, if the library should have become corrupted, this may not work. And the search will not look inside the packages.

The whole iPhoto library directory is only 556 MB so I guess the videos are lost for good.

How is the "Importing > Copy items to the iPhoto Library" flag set? See my last post.

If you imported with "store files" in there original location, the photos and videos will have remained on the card, until the crad has been erased.

Is there a way to start iPhoto from scratch so at least I can start over and have it not destory all my data next time?

You can create a new iphoto library, by using the command "File > Switch to Library > Create New".

Is there way to import my photos and videos without using iPhoto?

You can use the utility "Image Capture", that comes with every Mac to import your photos to folders on your Mac.

This program is horrendous!

I never had problems with it and like it, but I understand ....

The "Masters" folder is completely empty. The "preview" folder seemed to be full size images 2-3 MB. "Copy items to the iPhoto Library" is checked.

Then iPhoto should have copied the photos to the Masters folder and some problem must have prevented it. Is your folder /Users/user/Pictures/iPhoto/ on your internal system drive or a link to an external drive, that could have become offline?

When iPhoto - or other applications - cannot write their data to a volume that has gone offline, they may write to /tmp or $TMPDIR

You can browse these directories by opening a Terminal and entering

open /tmp

and

open $TMPDIR

Perhaps iPhoto wrote them to these caches. Look, before you you reboot the system. That might clear these directories.