I last backed up Aperture 09/19/15 to a LaCie external hard drive. I recently "lost" all my photos in Aperture. How do I restore my Aperture files from the hard drive so that all my edits return?
iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.1)
What kind of backup do you have on your Lacie drive? Is it a Time Machine backup? A copy of the Aperture library? Copies of your photos? A vault?
Hello léonie. Thanks for the response! It is a copy of Aperture library I presume, as it is about 1 gig in size. In Time Machine, when I click on the icon of the LaCie drive the restore does not activate.
It is a copy of Aperture library I presume, as it is about 1 gig in size.
Check it in the Finder. Does the copy on the external drive show an icon like an Aperture library and has the filename extension ".aplibrary"?
Like this?
Or is the filename extension ".apvault" and are you seeing a vault icon?
If it is the Aperture Library icon, you should be able to open the copy in Aperture by double clicking it to launch Aperture on this copied library.
If it is the vault icon, you can change the ".apvault" filename extension to ".aplibrary" in the "File > Get Info" panel for the vault and then open it like an Aperture library.
Neither, it is the Aperture Icon only, the front of a camera lens. No extension, just Aperture application icon.
No extension, just Aperture application icon.
Then it is a copy of your Aperture application and not of the Aperture library.
The Application does not store the photos inside the application. You need to find a copy of your Aperture library.
Search a copy of your home folder on the backup drive. Look into the Pictures folder in the backup of the Home folder.
I guess I made a serious mistake making backups of only my Aperture app.
So now I have to go to Time Machine to look for my lost images.
SOoshould I assume that if I go back on time machine to before I lost my images then I would be able to restore them from their. Correct?
If so where do I look for the images: under home:pictures:aperture library?
It is very good to have a backup of the Aperture.app, now that Apple pulled it from the App Store. But it would indeed have been better to have a copy of the Aperture Library as well.
To restore from Time Machine open your Pictures folder, enter Time Machine, and then look for your Aperture lIbrary to appear, as you go back in time along the time line to the right of the window.
Thanks léonie; I'm in the process of doing that now! I do appreciate your help. I will keep a back-up of Aperture on my LaCie. I don't understand why Apple made such a retrograde step with iPhotos. Aperture has great, user friendly editing tools, much simpler and faster than Photoshop! Not as so[phisticated, but for web use photos it is all one needed! regards, Michael
restoring lost photos from Aperture
