Time Machine does not back up iPhoto

Question

Time Machine does not back up iPhoto

Start a new Time Machine disk and it does not back up iPhoto. The "Now" selection looks good, but there are no active "backup" tabs in iPhoto where my Documents have active backed up times.

This began on the old disk where after a certain time photos were not backed up and were displayed in any "backup" selection as a blank sheet, folded corner and an earlier date photo displaying correctly that I restored successfully then converted to the blank sheet in the "backup" selection.

Can this be fixed?

Should I update to Mavericks first and see if that fixes the problem, or should I fix this before updating?

I have rebooted, checked and repaired per option in disk utility for the computer and external Time Machine disks.

David

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Oct 29, 2013 11:40 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

ivansky

Level 2

284 points

Oct 30, 2013 2:50 AM in response to bicycledriver

If I understand your problem correctly, you're concerned because it looks like TIme Machine is not backing up your iPhoto files/database? I did a bit of searching and found the following article which explains that the entire iPhoto library has to be restored, not individual photos, if you are running later versions of iPhoto and OS X:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4927

Does that help answer your question?

Ivan

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Answer 2

Nov 6, 2013 11:11 AM in response to ivansky

Hello Ivan,

Thanks for the article as I was unaware of the change for newer versions of iPhoto. My problem showed up with the latest os 8 Mountain Lion and the latest iPhoto '09 which backed up selected photos from an iPhoto window.

I decided to upgrade to Mavericks and iPhoto '09. Now I see that I have alias folders when I "show package contents" on my iPhoto library. "Modified" folder is an alias of "Preview", "Original" an alias of "Masters" and Data (also Data.noindex) are an alias of Thumbnails.

Will this need fixing before I proceed and the backup can work?

David

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Answer 3

Old Toad

Level 10

207,241 points

Nov 6, 2013 11:41 AM in response to bicycledriver

Will this need fixing before I proceed and the backup can work?

No. Leave them be. The aliases are for older apps that look for those "older" folder names in order to use the library, i.e like 3rd party slideshow apps, etc.

OT

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Answer 4

Nov 7, 2013 8:36 PM in response to ivansky

I'm now fixed and done (update to latest software and learn how to use it)

Thanks again Ivan for the article, it alerted me to otherwise incomprehensible changes in iPhoto/Time Machine operation such as in my case would transfer 3.8GB of data to restore a single photo, while apparently loosing all photos added after that backup time.

However the article says:

When using iPhoto ’11 (version 9.2 or later) and Time Machine with OS X Lion 10.7.2 (or later), iPhoto no longer has the Browse Backups option. This means that instead of restoring specific photos within your iPhoto Library, you must restore your entire iPhoto Library.

This may be practically true but it is technically false.

To restore a single photo in iPhoto '11 with Time Machine it goes something like this:

Start with your Time Machine hard drive and navigate many steps (including showing package contents where necessary) all the way through to the photo/date you want. Drag it to your desktop. (Do not make any edits in Time Machine!) Import to iPhoto. Click on last import in iPhoto. Right click the photo and change the event name, then look for it at the right date in iphoto with the new event name.

Hopefully those with more time and patience can check this out and see what it can do. I had to do it twice with Apple suport senior tech to get it. What a pain compared to iPhoto' 09 but at least now I can restore iPhoto library or a photo if necessary.

David

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