Q: Reverting to iPhoto after Photos migration

I have the SAME PROBLEM and I deeply dislike Photos.  In addition, it has LOST the past 2 1/2  years worth of photos. What makes this even worse is that these 2 1/2 years instantly disappeared from both Photos AND iPhoto when I did the upgrade.  I have not checked my Time Machine yet because I don't want to  tamper with anything until I can take my iMac into the Genius Bar. The way it looks now, it will take a genius to undo the farce of Photos.  If I could, I would revert back to iPhoto in a second and uninstall Photos, but I am stuck with it having taken up residence in my computer like rats in a roof. Can anyone spare me the trip to the Apple Store by showing me how and where to find my missing photos?

Sounds like your iPhoto Library was corrupted.

Download iPhoto Library Manager and use its rebuild function. (In early versions of Library Manager it's the File -> Rebuild command. In later versions it's under the Library menu.)

This will create an entirely new library. It will then copy (or try to) your photos and all the associated metadata and versions to this new Library, and arrange it as close as it can to what you had in the damaged Library. It does this based on information it finds in the iPhoto sharing mechanism - but that means that things not shared won't be there, so no slideshows, books or calendars, for instance - but it should get all your events, albums and keywords, faces and places back.

Because this process creates an entirely new library and leaves your old one untouched, it is non-destructive, and if you're not happy with the results you can simply return to your old one.

The answer to the question you asked is "in a folder called 'Masters'".  On your Desktop, press Command+F and type Masters.  The Finder will reveal your Masters folder.  If they haven't been deleted for some reason, all of your images will be there.  Be careful not to rearrange images in this folder.  You can copy Masters images into other folders, however.  This would help you access them when iPhoto (or the accursed Photos) fails to present them for one reason or another.

iPhoto Library Manager is a great program for some purposes but not for others.  In the transition to Photos, it saved my collection.  It proved impervious to Apple's oddly non-existent migration protocol.  Two thumbs up.

PhotoDirector6 Ultra was a failure.  It looks like a nice program but won't import my collection.

And so in the end, with apologies to the Beatles, I've switched to Lightroom.  It works very well for managing and editing a large collection.  It may not work for Home Sharing on an Apple TV, but that's a secondary issue.  I hate paying Adobe's tribute, but there's really no alternative.  Photos has great functionality.  If only Apple hadn't rolled the Desktop edition as an unvetted Beta . . .

You are a saving grace. Apple should pay you billions of dollars for showing a fix to their horrible new photo app. iPhoto organized all my photos perfectly - leaving me in control of albums, dragging albums together, dragging photos into albums, etc. It was PERFECT. I opened photo, and understand sometimes it takes time to adjust to a change. BUT there is NOTHING better in photo. It's like taking iPhoto for mac and making it Bill Gates photo for win 8.1 - totally *****. I have followed your plan to stop Photo from copying items to the Photo Library and opening iPhoto and then changing iPhoto to connecting to camera and now have my iPhoto back and now it's usable again. I hated the photo section of my iPad and wished that worked like iPhoto instead of dumbing it down into their Photo app. Like in the Chevy Chase movie, "did apple just now get manure for brains?"

After a good deal work I am now running iPhoto and Photos with Apple TV using my old iPhoto folder. The only problem with the old iPhoto seemed to be in its lack of speed..... I have not seen much gain in the new Photos.

I wish Apple would have simply come out with Photos and let it compete with iPhoto. The best app would win...so to speak. Apple has failed in the transition from iPhoto to Photos...ie.  what to do with 200 iPhoto family albums which Photos won't recognize?  Kind of reminds me of the decision making with Apple MAPS a few years ago....only worse.

Will my Library manager save "albums" and is there anyway that Photos will recognize albums....over two hundred of them.

Pete Kroner wrote:

 

Will my Library manager save "albums" and is there anyway that Photos will recognize albums....over two hundred of them.

Yes - but not slideshows or projects - basically it can only "save" sharable items

see their help file online for more details - http://www.fatcatsoftware.com

LN

Thanks chipsfortea, I was messing around with the new Photo and making things worst and now I got back my iPhoto with all the features that make this app works so well. Apple needs urgently to work on the new Photos as it has tons of problems.

I am in the identical situation. I just emptied 1,000 photos onto my computer and updated to Photo (unknowinly, I just hit the usual update button and my life blew up in my face). Now, I am being told if I cull through my photos (which I do by deleting 900 photos) and need a deleted photo in 6 months,....it will be gone because Photo will delete anything in the trash even if I don't want it to. AND I DON'T WANT IT TO!

If you do not want photos deleted DON'T PUT THEM IN THE TRASH!

Why do they think they have the right to remove something from my computer that I use everyday with thousands of work photos? I have never felt so violated.

Raychel Potter wrote:

 

Why do they think they have the right to remove something from my computer that I use everyday with thousands of work photos? I have never felt so violated.

'They' (I assume that you mean Apple) have not removed anything from your computer, you have not been violated at all.

But even if they had it would be within their rights (they can alter OS X when required, you already agreed to it when you accepted the terms of use for OS X)

I tried.  I can not longer open iPhoto as my version needs updating, apparently.  But I cannot update as the updated version is not available in Canada!

But I cannot update as the updated version is not available in Canada!

The error message is misleading. The update page of the AppStore does not work, and you cannot purchase the newer version, but if you ever updated iPhoto from the App Store you should be able to reinstall from the Purchases page of the AppStore, see this User Tip:

Usually it will work to reinstall instead of updating:

Get iPhoto 9.6.1 if you didn't update before OS... | Apple Support Communities

The main idea is to move the iPhoto app to the Trash, so Spotlight does not see it as installed, reload the AppStore, and then to try to download again from the App Store - from your Purchases tab, not from the main page, since you can neither buy iPhoto nor update it, but you can reinstall, if your AppleID is associated with it.

I actually migrated my iPhoto  (v9.6.1) app from and older, up to date MBA, via a USB thumb drive to a brand new MBA that had an earlier version of iPhoto on it. The trick was to drag the older version to the trash and then drag the USB fully updated version to the Applications folder.

If the App Store continues to fail you, find someone who has 9.6.1 and copy it onto a portable drive.

Good luck