WarmSandsMan
Level 1 (8 points)
iCloud

Q: Icons NOT Thumbnails

I have been trying to get used to taking pictures with my iPhone 6 and then saving them to albums so that they are easily accessible. I have also been trying to clean things up by moving images from Dropbox and OneDrive so that all of my pictures are in Apple's Photo Library. The other day, all of a sudden what used to be folders and albums filled with thumbnail pictures are now filled with icons (either "filmlike" strips that have bright orange Gerbera Daisies on them or other icons). If I haven't gone in and labeled each picture with a description all that is there are numbers and I cannot tell which picture I'm going to attach or select. How do I turn those icons back into thumbnails?

 

Thanks,

 

Rick

iPhone 6, iOS 9.3.1

Posted on May 15, 2016 8:04 PM

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WarmSandsMan

Q: Icons NOT Thumbnails

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  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie May 16, 2016 1:28 AM in response to WarmSandsMan
    Level 10 (106,958 points)
    iCloud
    May 16, 2016 1:28 AM in response to WarmSandsMan

    I have also been trying to clean things up by moving images from Dropbox and OneDrive so that all of my pictures are in Apple's Photo Library.

    Rick, where are you seeing this?  Are you using the Photos.app on a Mac, at www.icloud.com, or on your iPhone?  which OS X version are you using on your Mac?

     

    Are the icons similar to this?

    Screen Shot 2016-05-16 at 10.21.35GMT.png

     

    If I haven't gone in and labeled each picture with a description all that is there are numbers and I cannot tell which picture I'm going to attach or select. How do I turn those icons back into thumbnails?

    If you are browsing your photos in the Photos.app on your Mac, try, if rotating a photo back and forth will rebuild the thumbnail. If it works, you can do it in large batches at once, see this user tip:   How to Rebuild Thumbnails in a Photos Library

     

    Occasionally the thumbnails in the Browser may not correspond to the enlarged image, or the thumbnails may appear to be corrupted, but the enlarged image is fine. While iPhoto and Aperture have a tool to recreate the thumbnails,  such a tool is missing in the first Photos version 1.0.

    We can use this simple workaround to fix the thumbnails:

    • To rebuild the thumbnails edit them slightly, so Photos will be forced to render new thumbnails. This is best done by rotating the photos back and forth, because rotating by 90° degrees is non-destructive and can be applied to multiple photos at once without having to open the Edit window for each photo individually.
      • Select all photos that need new thumbnails at once - it does not matter if the selection includes photos that do not need repairing.
      • Then rotate the selected photos back and forth by first pressing ⌘R (Image > Rotate Counterclockwise) and then back by ⇧⌘R (Image > Rotate Clockwise).

    This may not suffice, if your photos are RAW photos and the corrupted thumbnails are caused by a difference in RAW processing.  In that case try to reprocess the RAW files:

    • Double-click a photo in your Photos library to open it, click Edit in the toolbar, then choose Image > Reprocess RAW.

    Before applying this fix I'd repair the Photos library, just in case there are other hidden corruptions.

    To repair the Photos Library:

    • Make a backup copy of the iPhoto Library.
    • Hold down the key combination alt/options key and command key ⌥⌘ while double clicking the Photos icon. Click the  "Repair" button and repair the library. This may take a while for a large library.


    Update:  There is now an Apple Support Document describing this fix: 

    Fix missing or incorrect thumbnails in Photos - Apple Support https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205069