Probably a lost cause, but I have to try. All my photos and movies files were stored in an External Hard disk who stopped working.
I see them all in Photos app on my Mac . Is there a way to save the photos and movies ??
I thought the whole library is backed up to iCloud but it turns out that only the last year. All the pictures of my kids are there
before paying a lot of money. Someone has an idea ??
MacBook Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.2)
Explain more, please.
I see them all in Photos app on my Mac . Is there a way to save the photos and movies ??
So you are having a Photos library on your Mac? What did you store on your external drive? The original image files for your Photos, or did you have there another Photos library or iPhoto Library? What were your Preferences for importing to Photos? Are they set to
Photos > Preferences > General "Copy items to the Photos Library"? Or is the "Copy items" option disabled?
I thought the whole library is backed up to iCloud but it turns out that only the last year. All the pictures of my kids are there
How have you been using iCloud? Is iCloud Photo Library enabled, or have you been using My Photo Stream?
HI. I have one photo Libaray on my Mac. But I store all my photo files (the original) on the ex hd. The preferences are set to copy items. (But when I try to access them now I get a message to go to the folder - which Is gone.
ICloud library is on and also photo steam
do you think there is any hope??
(But when I try to access them now I get a message to go to the folder - which Is gone.
Then you imported originally with the option to reference the originals on the external drive, and those originals will be lost.
if you are seeing the photos still in Photos you can try to save the previews and the thumbnails, however.
Ctrl-click your Photos Library in the Pictures folder. Select "Show Package Contents" from the menu that will pop up.
You will see a window with the folders inside your Photos Library. Copy the folders "Previews", "Masters", "Thumbnails" to a different drive, or wherever you have enough free storage.
You will find smaller sized JPEGs of your missing photos in the Previews and thumbnails folder, and the originals of some of your photos in the Masters folder.
These folders are organized by the date of the import session.
Thank you for your help! I found a few picters doing what you said but most are still lost.
Looks like I'll have to pay ( a lot! 😟) To have my HD reconstruction...
And when you buy the replacement drive, buy a second drive as a backup, so you always have two copies of your photos on different drives. iCloud is no backup for your photos.
Saving lost photos - photos app on OS:
