Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

iPhoto 'lost' photos and is saving strange images

iphoto has suddenly lost a lot of my photos for no apparent reason. They were all there yesterday but today when I went in to iPhoto lots of the albums said they contained no photos. I haven't done anything differently, have not deleted anything or made any changes. I basically edited a few photos from one album, saved them to a new folder and that was it. Can anyone tell me what I need to do to restore the pictures? Please note that I am definitely not technical, so any answers in basic "layman" terms would be appreciated!


The second problem I have is that for AGES, iPhoto randomly saves a load of weird images into the library and folders. It's usually things like logos, icons, weird computer style images etc. There are literally thousands of them clogging up my iPhoto folders and I really do not have the time to select each one and delete . Does anyone know how or why these things show up in my iPhoto library/folders? And is there any way of stopping it happening?


Thanks

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.5), null

Posted on Jul 5, 2015 5:13 PM

Reply
7 replies

Jul 6, 2015 1:07 AM in response to Yer_Man

iPhoto version 9.4.3

OS X 10.7.5


I have been trying to do back up to an external zip drive, problem is that it has been running for 24 hours and is still backing up-presumably because it is now trying to back up the thousands of weird logos, images, buttons, graphics etc.

I discovered that all the weird stuff had saved into a "Resources" folder on iPhoto. I tried to delete it but it ended up deleting ALL of my photos, I started to get them back ffrom the trash folder but there are thousands, plus it has duplicated everything. I'm now at breaking point with iPhoto and have no idea what to do.

I managed to work out how to rebuild the library last night, but it has not done it properly- it had wiped out some photos and went on a five hour event of saving all of those weird images, which were not there in the first place. Totally confused as to what to do.

Jul 6, 2015 1:25 AM in response to rachofthenorth

I have been trying to do back up to an external zip drive


Do you mean an actual zip drive? Or some sort of Hard Drive? How are you doing the back up?


I discovered that all the weird stuff had saved into a "Resources" folder on iPhoto


WHat's happened is at some point the icon for the iPhoto application was dropped onto the iPhoto Window, and consequently all the graphic elements of the app are imported and treated like photos. If you use Events view it will be easy to find these based on when they were imported.


How did you try delete them?

Jul 6, 2015 1:34 AM in response to Yer_Man

The drive is an external Porsche drive that you plug in to the imac (sorry, I'm not very technical!) Apple shop sold it to me and said it was the perfect thing to buy to do back ups.

I tried to delete them by choosing "show in Finder" because I couldn't work out where on the computer they were saved to, then tried to delete the folder from finder. When I went backin to iphoto everything was gone, so I then went in to the trash folder and started to ry to pull out the ones I needed.

Jul 6, 2015 1:41 AM in response to rachofthenorth

I tried to delete them by choosing "show in Finder" because I couldn't work out where on the computer they were saved to, then tried to delete the folder from finder. When I went backin to iphoto everything was gone,


Okay well you mucked up your Library there. Never ever delete anything from iphoto except through the iPhoto window.


As you don't have a back up, you're really in a position where you have to recover the files from that trashed folder and start over again.

Jul 6, 2015 2:57 AM in response to Yer_Man

I'm not in front of my iMac now, but is there anything that can be done through the iPhoto library manager? When I look there it shows 3 different libraries, one from ages ago which has photos up to about 3 months ago, another which is the one(rebuilt) I HAD been using (that one still has a few folders missing) and another one (rebuilt rebuilt??) That is the one with all the weird images in.


I can see some of my edited photos (the ones I really really need back) in the Pictures folder in Finder

Finder but don't understand how to get those back to iPhoto?

Also, you mentioned previously that at some point the iPhoto logo had been dropped on to the window - how do I get rid of that and ensure it doesn't happen again?

iPhoto 'lost' photos and is saving strange images

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.