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iPhoto library empty after upgrade to work with Yosemite

I got a message that I needed to update my iPhoto library to work with Yosemite. After it was done repairing, I have no photos in iPhoto anymore! My iPhoto library resides on a external drive. It shows 300GB of photos on disc but I can't see any. Help - how do I restore my iPhoto library!

Posted on Oct 24, 2014 10:19 AM

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17 replies

Oct 24, 2014 10:27 AM in response to KHSF

Make sure the external drive is connected, then hold down option, while launching iPhoto. Check to see if there are multiple libraries and inspect them for your missing images. (if iPhoto is unable to open or locate the default library, it will open a new [empty] library.


If the library that is opening is you're 'main' library, but is not displaying images, hold down command and option while launching iPhoto. Run repair database in the resulting menu. If that doesn't work, ensure that you have a backup and run rebuild database.

Oct 24, 2014 1:44 PM in response to photosb189

Thank you! I am in the midst of repairing the database (takes forever!) but at least something is happening! It tells me I have more than 200,000 photos left to import still. I have maybe a tenth of that in photos so I don't know what makes up the difference. Any ideas of what the problem could be?

Oct 26, 2014 8:22 AM in response to KHSF

After letting iPhoto work for an entire day, nothing ever happened. It finished importing the photos then got stuck. So finally I quit iPhoto and restarted again. I was back to where I began...."iPhoto library needs to be upgraded to work with this version of iPhoto" and when I click UPGRADE, I get a continuous spinning wheel. At some point it turned into "Examining photo library" then the wheel spins for hours more. This doesn't seem to be going anywhere!

Oct 26, 2014 9:49 PM in response to Yer_Man

Thanks Terence. I checked: Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

Despite many hours at the Apple store today, I am back to where I began. In the process of "repairing iPhoto permissions". The Apple Genius had told me to copy the iPhoto library Masters on my LaCie directly onto my MacBook Air but when I went home to do that, I got a message that the process would take 24 DAYS! So after 3 hours, I have given up on that, and am retrying photosb189's instructions to repair the database. Any other suggestions?

Oct 28, 2014 9:29 AM in response to KHSF

I am having the same issue. My Library is on an external USB drive that has worked fine for iPhoto under Mavericks. No change there. After trying to upgrade and repair permissions through iPhoto, it has hung and now there is no Library recognized. I go into the Library package and see the files have been moved to folders called Old Masters, Old Previews and Old Thumbnails. No images in the Masters, etc so iPhoto thinks the Library is empty. I can move the files over manually but iPhoto doesn't recognize them if I move them into the Masters folder.


Can anyone advise? I noticed something about reinstalling iPhoto or using a library manager? Any advice on how to do that or if it would help? Thanks!

Nov 6, 2014 3:58 PM in response to KHSF

I've since gone and reimported all my photos by taking them out of the package contents, starting a new library and then dragging them back into iPhoto. Not ideal. I can tell you even doing that was giving it trouble with upgrading and doing the thumbnails until I removed the movie files. After that importing just the photos worked. It's possible that the movie files were causing the problem.

Dec 22, 2014 12:01 PM in response to Chris Kerins

I have had the same issue, a few days after upgrading to Yosemite when I tried to open iPhoto. After getting the error about needing to upgrade, doing that and then rebuild iPhoto, it finally opened but with no photos. The photos were all moved from "Masters" to "Old Masters" within iPhoto Library. I tried copying the folders/photos from "Old Masters" to "Masters" but that had no effect. I am now following Chris's advice above - created a new library and dragging the photos back into iPhoto one year at a time. I am not sure how they will be organized in iPhoto and this will be a long process as I have 15 years of photos to copy.

Feb 27, 2015 2:56 PM in response to photosb189

I have the same issue. Lacie Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

Updated to Yosimite, Updated iPhoto

My iPhoto Library resides on my Lacie External Hard drive.

When I attempted to open iPhoto, I was given a message that the database needed to be updated or something like that. I accepted.

Photos were all moved to Old Masters. At this time, when I attempted to open iPhoto, it appeared completely empty (Masters folder was empty)

I ran "repair database" as suggested by photosb189 above. I waited patiently while iPhoto imported about 60,000 images into iPhoto from Old Masters (where they still reside). The process completed (although "finishing import" took a very long time... like overnight), however all of the quicktime files were rejected (over 1,000 of them). All of the photos were just imported in one big chunk with all of their previous organization lost. No years, no albums... just a big pile of 60,000 photos with my quicktimes rejected.


I'm a computer programmer myself. Can anyone point me to any documentation that might aid me in understanding why this occurred? or how iPhoto organizes things? I have a complete backup of everything (blu-ray discs & google drive). I'd love to see if I can find a way to get my iPhoto experience restored, or at least learn how I should have tried to solve this differently. I could still restore the old iPhoto package contents, but that should just bring me right back to square one.

iPhoto library empty after upgrade to work with Yosemite

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