HT204259: If Photos won't open a library that you already migrated

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KateG

Q: photos not opening migrated photos on backup

I saved my photo library to my backiup disk and put them on a new computer--Photos immediated migrated them, but when I unhooked the backup disk along with those photos I cannot now access those photos on any computer???  They were not saved on my new computer and the backup disk shows them as migrated and unopenable.  What can I do?

 

I am running El Capitan and Photos 1.3

imac, Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Posted on Mar 9, 2016 5:09 PM

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Q: photos not opening migrated photos on backup

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  • by LarryHN,Apple recommended

    LarryHN LarryHN Mar 9, 2016 5:43 PM in response to KateG
    Level 10 (84,530 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Mar 9, 2016 5:43 PM in response to KateG

    It is not clear exactly what you did - but when you migrate a library the migrated Photo library is on the same drive as the original library - best guess is that probably you need to drag the Photos library form the EHD to the internal HD

     

    LN

  • by NNS2NNM,

    NNS2NNM NNS2NNM Apr 7, 2016 5:12 PM in response to KateG
    Level 1 (12 points)
    Notebooks
    Apr 7, 2016 5:12 PM in response to KateG

    This happened to me as well. All of the photos were there until I disconnected the EHD. I reconnected it and copied the Photos Library it created and put into the EHD to the Desktop. For whatever reason it did not ask me what Photo Library I wanted to use or if I wanted to create a second one like I saw in the support about this. Now my old Photo Library is gone, but luckily it is all in the Cloud. (At least I hope so at this point--I am beyond frustrated).

     

    So after it finished copying all of the photos over it shows that all the photos are there if I view the library with the photos sorted by year. If I hit the right arrow and it sorts them by week to two weeks they are still all there...but once I click the right arrow again and sort by day there is a HUGE amount of them missing. You can see an outline of the photo, and even the length of the video if it is a video, as well as right click for the info. But the pictures are gone.

     

    I don't understand why the backup "migrates" the photos and doesn't remain a backup for issues like these.

     

    HELP!!!

  • by Rysz,Apple recommended

    Rysz Rysz Apr 7, 2016 8:01 PM in response to KateG
    Level 7 (20,475 points)
    iTunes
    Apr 7, 2016 8:01 PM in response to KateG

    When your iPhoto Library was migrated to Photos Library, your images were NOT duplicated into the Photos Library. The Library just hard links to the same files on your disk as those used by iPhoto Library. There is NO duplication or copying of images involved.

     

    That's why you need to keep the external drive with the images stored on it connected if you want Photos to have access to them. That, or copy the image files to your startup disk.

  • by eschultz71,

    eschultz71 eschultz71 Jun 17, 2016 8:34 PM in response to KateG
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Jun 17, 2016 8:34 PM in response to KateG

    I encountered a similar problem when I had moved all the library files into a seperate folder in order to maintain organization. Long story short, I was given the message that my "iPhotoLibrary.migratedphotolibrary" file could not be opened by the Photos app because it had already been migrated.

     

    To solve this problem I simply changed the file extension from ".migratedphotolibrary" to ".photolibrary" and after opening it, the photos app simply migrated it again to a new photos library.

     

    Hope this helps! I experienced this problem on my parents' old iMac. To avoid this problem, on my MacBook I simply use finder and store all my files in folders rather than dealing with the pesky libraries of Apple's various media applications (Final Cut, Photos, iMovie).