I updated iPhoto this morning and when the system restarted there was nothing in iPhoto. It wasn't backed up to my external HD. Is there a way to restore or find what was lost?

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I updated iPhoto this morning and when the system restarted there was nothing in iPhoto. It wasn't backed up to my external HD. Is there a way to restore or find what was lost?

I am running Yosemite 10.10.2 and I updated iPhoto to most recent release. All of my pictures and videos that were in the library are now gone and I cannot locate them anywhere on my Mac HD.

Is it possible to restore my machine to an earlier date to recover them?

Are they somewhere on the machine that I am not looking?

I am not very tech savvy when it comes to things like that but I've been searching around and can't figure out what happened.

Thanks,

Z

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)

Posted on Mar 29, 2015 9:59 AM

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Answer 1

léonie

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Mar 29, 2015 10:02 AM in response to zkane923

Did iPhoto crash, when you first started it after the upgrade? Was there any warning message that the library needs upgrading?

What iPhoto version did you upgrade from?

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Answer 2

zkane923 Author

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Mar 29, 2015 10:33 AM in response to léonie

When I opened iPhoto it gave me a prompt that said I needed to either Upgrade or Quit and that an upgrade could take up to several hours. I selected upgrade and the progress bar was done in seconds. iPhoto launched and there was nothing there - it looked like a fresh install.

I restarted the machine, launched iPhoto again and was met with the same experience.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure which version I was running before the upgrade. Is there a way to check?

Thank you!

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Answer 3

léonie

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194,761 points

Mar 29, 2015 11:16 AM in response to zkane923

I'm sorry, I'm not sure which version I was running before the upgrade. Is there a way to check?

Only by looking at the iPhoto application on your last backup.

I selected upgrade and the progress bar was done in seconds. iPhoto launched and there was nothing there - it looked like a fresh install.

Either the upgrade corrupted your iPhoto Library, or the library is on an external disk, where iPhoto cannot access it and iPhoto created a new, empty library.

Where is your iPhoto library stored? On your system drive in the Pictures folder or on an external drive?

If your iPhoto library is on your internal drive, look for it in your Pictures folder and check the size of the iPhoto Library. Is it still large enough to be holding all your photos? At least a few GB large? Then select the iPhoto library in the Finder, ctrl-click it, and select "Show Package Contents" from the pp-up menu. In the Finder window that will open, look for the folder "Masters". Are your photos inside in nested folders? Is her also a folder "Old Masters"?

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Answer 4

zkane923 Author

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Mar 29, 2015 1:40 PM in response to léonie

Thank you - I was able to find them there. Very much appreciate the help.

Will these be easily imported back into iPhoto once I back them up on an Ex HD

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Answer 5

léonie

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194,761 points

Mar 29, 2015 2:46 PM in response to zkane923

I was able to find them there.

Great. So your photos are still in the iPhoto Library.

Did you find them in the "Masters" folder or in "Old Masters"?

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Answer 6

zkane923 Author

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Mar 30, 2015 5:54 AM in response to léonie

I found them in the "Masters" folder. All of the naming conventions were gone and they were organized by year (08, 09, 10, etc.).

I was able to import them back into the iPhoto Events/Gallery and will reorganize at another time. I also backed up them all (26GB) to an external HD.

Any recommendations for automatically backing up my iPhoto Library to an external HD whenever I upload new content?

Thanks again for all your help - so very much appreciated.

Z

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Answer 7

léonie

Level 10

194,761 points

Mar 30, 2015 6:04 AM in response to zkane923

if your iPhoto Library is on a drive that is included in your Time Machine backup, it will be automatically backed up.

To have a separate backup of your iPhoto Library, you could set up Carbon Copy Cloner (or other cloning software) to create a clone of the library on an external drive and regularly update that clone.

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