All Folders disappeared

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Level 1

35 points

All Folders disappeared

Hi all,

as I have noticed just now, all my folders in Photos are "hidden".

I can see only one folder, but all the other folders and subfolders I have created are no longer visible and therefor I cannot see the Albums in the folders.

If I search for an album name, it is shown and I can display all photos in this album.

But the sidebar does not show the folders.

That happens with Photos for Mac, iPhone, iPad and iCloud.

This was an enormous work to sort all my 32.000 photos into folders and albums.

I hope that someone as any hint.

Regards, Carsten

MacBook Pro with Retina display, macOS High Sierra (10.13.6)

Posted on Oct 8, 2018 12:44 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

léonie

Level 10

195,013 points

Oct 13, 2018 4:48 AM in response to NX70

The question is, how to repair it. Typically I would say, stop Photos sync on iPad, remove all photos and start the sync again. But it seem that has caused my problem, with missing all folders .

That is my experience. If I enable iCloud Photo Library on my iPad, after I enabled iCloud Photos on other devices, then the albums may vanish from all devices. The only safe way seems to be to enable iCloud Photos on my iPad, while no other device is syncing with iPhotos.The Mac needs to be the last device to start syncing.

I am occasionally seeing such shadow albums or folders appear, usually after a system upgrade. Albums that vanished are suddenly reappearing.

My strategy is to delete reappearing shadows on my Mac, if they are appearing there, to keep the folder structure on one device correct. I never create albums or folders on other devices, but let them sync from the one library that is backed up on my Mac.

Otherwise I ignore these specters that keep reappearing. If the glitches in the album structure are bothering you too much, you may want to contact Apple Support to reset your iCloud Photo Library on their servers. You cannot do it on your own.

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

195,013 points

Oct 8, 2018 2:29 PM in response to NX70

After repairing the library, Photos will have to upload and compare the library to the current version in iCloud too. It is only slightly less expensive than restoring from a backup.

See this support document: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204967

If you repair a library that's automatically updated with iCloud Photos, the entire contents of the library re-updates with iCloud after the repair process completes.

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Answer 3

léonie

Level 10

195,013 points

Oct 8, 2018 1:51 PM in response to NX70

Did you perhaps just recently enable iCloud Photo Library on an iPhone or iPad? This can delete the albums and folders in all devices, when the new device starts syncing with iCloud. I had it already happen more than once, when I enabled iCloud Photo Library on my iPad. Afterwards all folders with albums and smart albums were gone. Only some top level albums remained.

If the albums do not reappear, once the syncing with iCloud has finished and all photos have been uploaded to iCloud, you could restore your Photos Library from a Time Machine backup. When the Mac is the last device to start syncing with iCloud Photo Library, the albums usually stay.

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Answer 4

NX70 Author

Level 1

35 points

Oct 8, 2018 1:50 PM in response to léonie

Hi Léonie,

thank our for this fast answer.

I had some problems with the iOS 12.0 Update with my iPad and have switched off the iCloud Photos and later switched it on again. But this was done right after iOS 12.0 was available and the sync was finished.

I believe that the folders have been there until this morning (but I'm not sure).

I'm having Time Machine Backups and full backups on external disks back to Jan. 2018.

So, this is the last option I would do, as it's 290GB to restore.

I have read about the option to repair the Photos Library with opening the Photos App with clicking Option-Command.

This repair is just running at 27%. Maybe it helps, otherwise I have to do the backup restore, if there are no other options.

Regards, Carsten

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Answer 5

NX70 Author

Level 1

35 points

Oct 8, 2018 2:35 PM in response to léonie

It's done.

There are now 370 Albums, but all are in the root folder.

It did not restore any folder and there are still many albums missing in the list, but I can search for them.

So, I will need to restore my library from Time Maschine. 😟

I will try this tomorrow, as I need the MacBook now.

Hopefully, that will help.

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Answer 6

NX70 Author

Level 1

35 points

Oct 11, 2018 1:18 AM in response to léonie

Hi,

I have restored a two weeks old version of my Photos library from Tim Machin and found that it has the same problems.

I tried a backup from the days before I have done the iOS update on my iPad and the switch off / switch on for the iCloud Photos. This version has all the folder/album structure as it should.

So I'm very happy to have this structure back.

The problem now is, when switching on the iCloud Photos Sync on my MacBook, I got the message that there is not enough space on my SSD to download the iCloud Photos and I need to use the "optimize" mode.
But I like to keep the originals on my MacBook.

Any Idea how to handle this?

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Answer 7

léonie

Level 10

195,013 points

Oct 11, 2018 1:30 AM in response to NX70

and I need to use the "optimize" mode.

But I like to keep the originals on my MacBook.

For me it worked to enable iCloud with "Optimize Storage" on. Once the sync with iCloud has started and many photos had been synced, I disabled "Optimize Storage" again. This will work, as long as you have enough free storage on your Mac to hold the complete library, including the photos that have been added to icloud during the last few weeks,

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Answer 8

NX70 Author

Level 1

35 points

Oct 13, 2018 12:28 AM in response to léonie

It works!!!

I'm so happy that I got my folder structure back on all devices.

Thank you very much.

The only problem I've found is, that the iPad has some "shadow" folders and is not totally in sync with my Macbook Pro, iPhone and iCloud.

I've found some folders on the iPad that exists twice. The second folder is empty.

If I create a new folder or album, or change the name of an album on MBP, iPhone, iCloud, these changes items are copied in the empty folder.

So, it seems the iPad still has some problems with the folder/album structure.

The question is, how to repair it. Typically I would say, stop Photos sync on iPad, remove all photos and start the sync again. But it seem that has caused my problem, with missing all folders .

Any idea how, to get the iPad in sync with all other devices?

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