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photos cannot find the system photo library

I’m in trouble. I was deleting photos in ‘pictures’ as I wanted to clean up some space on my iMac. My assumption was that ‘pictures' is completely separate to iPhoto (or photos as it is now called). I then go back into photos (the old iPhoto) and get the message 'photos cannot find the system photo library’.

I cannot access any photos at all. I’m working on a large project this weekend and I have purchased hundreds of photos over the last 6 months which I require for the project. Blood pressure boiling at the moment!

Any help please

iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011), null

Posted on Apr 17, 2015 12:05 PM

Best reply

Alley_Cat

Level 7

20,548 points

Posted on Apr 17, 2015 1:11 PM

You haven't accidentally deleted the Photos library have you?

Assuming you used the default library and didn;t create a new one on an external drive or alternate startup drive location it should be in the Pictures folder for your user.

If you restart Photos by holding down the alt key does it give you any options to select a library?

Check your trash just in case!

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24 replies

Apr 17, 2015 2:22 PM in response to Alley_Cat

Absolutely. Have a great weekend

Apr 17, 2015 2:27 PM in response to Alley_Cat

bonjour ALLEY _CAT

est-ce que vous connaissez l'iphone 5s j'ai un souci et j'aimerais être guidée

merci

Alley_Cat

Level 7

20,548 points

Apr 17, 2015 2:27 PM in response to Alley_Cat

Those libraries are things you should avoid deleting. The separate individual images with an 'x' may well have been copied into those libraries if you use Pictures to store images temporarily prior to importing to iPhoto for example, though images can sometimes be added to libraries with the files staying where they are and not copied.

As many of those files show 'x's I'm not sure if you're looking in a Tiem Machine version of that folder.

For the time being I'd suggest not deleting anything until you are comfortable you can get things done, and secondly have backups.

Time Machine/Time Capsule is a good solution, but you can also back up those libraries if you need to to external drives via drag and drop.

Alley_Cat

Level 7

20,548 points

Apr 17, 2015 2:33 PM in response to Adele2015

Bonjour Adele

Je ne ai pas un iPhone 5s mais je ai les précédentes et iPhone 6 .

Un bon endroit pour votre question serait ici:

Using iPhone

Alley_Cat

Level 7

20,548 points

Apr 17, 2015 2:35 PM in response to Alley_Cat

Si vous postez une question là, je suis sûr que quelqu'un va essayer de vous aider .

léonie

Level 10

194,969 points

Apr 17, 2015 4:07 PM in response to davidpotterdp

Pictures folder.

The icons of the JPEG files do not look right. They should be showing a preview of the photo.

Is that the state, after you restored from your Time Machine drive? How did you do it?

To restore from your Time Machine, select your Pictures folder, and with the Pictures folder open enter Time Machine and go in the Time Tunnel back to before the Time when you deleted items in your Pictures folder.

Then select your iPhoto Library and click "Restore".

This describes how to restore the iPhoto Library, but if you rather want to restore the Photo Library, the procedure is the same.

iPhoto '11: Restoring from Time Machine with iPhoto '11 (9.2 or later) and OS X Lion 10.7.2 (or later) - Apple Support

Apr 18, 2015 5:28 AM in response to léonie

Hi Leonie. really appreciate the link. All seems to be working now.

Thank you

merrickb

Level 1

18 points

Jun 17, 2015 6:26 AM in response to davidpotterdp

I intentionally deleted the Photos library after I upgraded back to iPhoto from the hot mess that is Photos, and I get this same message all the time. Is there a way to tell Yosemite that Photos is not my default for anything, or should I just make a new album of a single image for Photos to use until they fix it?

Aug 17, 2017 3:32 AM in response to Alley_Cat

OMG Alley_Cat, THANK YOU!! You just helped me as well!

Thanks for sharing your knowledge 🙂

photos cannot find the system photo library