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Tigervision Author

Level 1

25 points

FYI: The WRONG way to delete photos from iphoto - BEWARE

Hi all...

I just want to follow up on something from earlier this year. About deleting photos.

The guru's (DT, OT, LN) taught me and others to try to limit deleting photos to 100 at a time from iphoto trash.

i.e. when you delete pictures, empty your iphoto trash when there are less than 100 pics in it.

Good advice. Thanks guys. I want to give feedback on another issue about deleting photos.

I suspected that iphoto never deleted certain pictures. So you might think you deleted 4000 pictures over the years, but you may have actually only deleted 2500... the other 1500 are hanging out in the masters folder or elsewhere. Turns out, I found out that is absolutely true.

Here is what happens.

If I import say 100 photos into a new event.

Then I go through and delete 25 pictures.

Then I merge that event with another event.

Then I go to trash in iphoto (at any time after that merge) and delete those 25 pictures from iphoto trash.

They will NOT be deleted.

(just empty your system/desktop trash can, and try it... the 25 pictures will not be in the system trash can as they should after deleting them from iphoto trash).

The fatal mistake: MERGING events BEFORE you delete those pictures from iphoto trash!!!!

If you empty the iphoto trash can before merging events, all is well.

I have confirmed this on my Mac. But more importantly, I was in Apple store yesterday and confirmed it with a brand new Mac running Mavericks and the Newest Iphoto. Just try it and you will see.

In sum: you delete photos from Event A. You merge A with Event B to create Event C. Then you empty your iphoto trash (after merging events). Those pictures you sent to iphoto trash from Event A before you merged with B... will NOT be deleted from iphoto and be hidden in your library.

Posted on Nov 27, 2013 3:00 PM

39 replies

Old Toad

Level 10

207,631 points

Apr 9, 2014 9:41 AM in response to Tigervision

One last attempt to add fuel to the fire:

Test 1:

1 - Delete 5 photos from Event A.

2 - Move Event A into Event B.

3 - Empty iPhoto Trash.

Results: the 5 masters remain in the library Masters folder.

Test 2:

1a - Delete 5 photos from Event A.

2a - Move Event B into Event A.

3a - Empty iPhoto Trash.

Results: the 5 masters are deleted and are in the Dock Trash bin.

Why? Because in the first test Event A doesn't exist after moving into Event B so the master files don't get moved when the trash is emptied.

Tigervision Author

Level 1

25 points

Apr 9, 2014 10:36 AM in response to Old Toad

This is exactly right. And it is a huge problem. I think many people have 100's or 1000's of pictures in iPhoto they think are gone..... And like I said... if you restore your iphoto from Time Machine... all those 1000's of pictures come back. Talk about painful.

Here is the issue/example:

I might create an event called Disney World... and put 2000 pictures in there. Then I might delete 1500 of those that are bad pics (and I do delete 100 or so pics at a time by emptying iphoto trash from all your prior blogs).. Keeping 500. Then I might merge that event with another event (say: Vacation 2014). If I did that... those 1500 pics will remain. So now it is engraned into my brain to empty trash BEFORE merging. If I accidently forget, and iphoto is still open, then i just undo and put event back and delete trash before re-merging.

I have reported this to apple... but no fix yet.

Apr 9, 2014 11:44 AM in response to Old Toad

Brilliant !

I've saved 2 Gb in the process.

Thanks for the help.

Timer12

Level 1

0 points

May 26, 2014 5:09 PM in response to Tigervision

I have the same problem as the OP. Instead of using Library Manager, would it be safe to just delve into the iphoto database and manually delete the photos in the masters folder that are known to be erroneously existing? I have a small library and I don't want to lose my slideshows by using iPhoto Library Manager.

LarryHN

Level 10

106,110 points

May 26, 2014 8:36 PM in response to Timer12

If you "just delve into the iPhoto library" and mamually delete anything you will corrupt yoru iPhoto library an dlose data -

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,380 points

May 27, 2014 12:28 AM in response to Timer12

No it would not be safe.

Timer12

Level 1

0 points

May 28, 2014 8:59 PM in response to Tigervision

Ok, I'll just leave them in there. There are only half a dozen or so (that I know of). Here is an interesting idea that I thought would help, but it didn't help me:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/08/deleting-zombie-photos-from-iphoto/

Cheers

Jul 11, 2014 11:07 PM in response to Timer12

Hi All,

Has anyone tried the method outlined in Timer12's post...

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/08/deleting-zombie-photos-from-iphoto/

I read the article and it seemed like a clever and reasonable method to identify, and get rid of, the pictures not wanted but hiding in the Masters folder.

I tried it, but it did not identify any pictures. Of course, that could mean I have no "lost but not forgotten" pics. I am not someone who merges events a great deal. But I certainly have done some merging of events. BTW, I did test the method in the link by adding 3 pictures to my iPhoto Library AFTER moving all 8,000'ish of my pictures into the "keep" folder as the method instructs. Those 3 pics showed up immediately in the "don't keep" smart folder the method also instructs you to create. So the smart folder rule appears to work.

I'm running...

OS X 10.9.4

iPhoto v. 9.5.1

thanks in advance for any feedback, Mr. Luigi

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,380 points

Jul 11, 2014 11:24 PM in response to Mr. Luigi

There is no reason to assume that there are any "lost but not forgotten" pics.

FYI: The WRONG way to delete photos from iphoto - BEWARE