empty albums in photos and time machine will not restore

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Level 1

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empty albums in photos and time machine will not restore

I noticed yesterday that many of my albums in photos are empty. I have separate albums for each year. Thousands of photos are missing. The only one with pictures is the folder I use for this year's pictures but even it is missing photos. Don't know how long the albums have been empty. I have tried to restore from a time machine backup. Have tried two different backups from time machine and neither have restored the empty albums. The time machine back up indicates that it is 142 GB but when I complete the restoration process the albums are still empty except for the current (2018) folder which has some but not all of photos.

What is interesting is the photos library in the TM backup from October 11 is 142GB and the back from November 9 is 8.56 GB. Somehow between October 11 and Nov 9 most of the content of the photos library disappeared.

My time machine backups are on an external hard drive.

Any recommendations?

Thanks very much!

Andrew

Posted on Nov 11, 2018 1:21 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

200,645 points

Nov 12, 2018 6:50 AM in response to thebug

. I don't specifically remember deleting them from icloud but it is possible that I deleted them from another device like an old iphone.

If you deleted the photos from the iPhone while still syncing the Mac with iCloud, it would explain, why the photos vanished from the albums on your Mac and all other devices syncing with iCloud Photos.

Then your only hope to recover your photos is to restore the last backup of your Photos Library from Time Machine, that you made, before you deleted the photos from the old iPhone. Try your TM backup from October 11 with 142GB

Do not overwrite your current library, when you restore the older library, so you can recover the newer photos from the current library.

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

200,645 points

Nov 12, 2018 7:48 AM in response to thebug

It is hard to tell after such a long time.

One problem with using iCloud Photo Library is, that Time Machine backups will be incomplete, if you used iCloud Photo Library with "Optimize Storage". Then some of the originals will only be in iCloud and not be downloaded to the Mac, and the Time Machine backup cannot save them. Could "Optimize Storage" have been enabled? It is unfortunately the default option, when you enable iCloud Photo Library.

Does your Time Machine go back to a time, when you did not use "Optimize"?

Then try to restore an older version of your library as well, to save as many original images as possible.

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Answer 3

thebug Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 12, 2018 6:25 PM in response to léonie

I was able to restore from an older backup before the problem with icloud. Thanks very much for your time and assistance!

Andrew

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Answer 4

léonie

Level 10

200,645 points

Nov 12, 2018 5:23 AM in response to thebug

And has never been enabled? If it has ever been enabled while you deleted photos on another device, the photos may have vanished from your Mac as well.

It is really rare that photos vanish from a Photos Library on their own. It would require a crasher a failing drive, that left the Photos Library severely damaged. Or storing the Photos Library on an incompatible drive or a synced volume, for example in your Dropbox.

Also running cleaning applications to remove duplicates can cause a similar damage.

Usually it is a user error when photos get deleted, for example, if you delete photos from the Imports view, they will be removed from the library and all albums, not just from the Imports or Last Import.

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Answer 5

léonie

Level 10

200,645 points

Nov 12, 2018 3:41 AM in response to thebug

What is interesting is the photos library in the TM backup from October 11 is 142GB and the back from November 9 is 8.56 GB. Somehow between October 11 and Nov 9 most of the content of the photos library disappeared

Is iCloud Photo Library enabled in your Photos Preferences > iCloud? If yes, is "Optimize Storage" enabled as well?

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Answer 6

thebug Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 12, 2018 6:05 AM in response to léonie

it has been enabled in the past but not in some time. The only photos in my icloud currently are ones that my iphone was uploading in the last year or so. at some point I did have all of our photos in icloud but they are not there anymore. I don't specifically remember deleting them from icloud but it is possible that I deleted them from another device like an old iphone.

Is is significant that my time machine photos folder backup from October 11 is 142 GB? That makes me think there are photos and videos there but for some reason photos is not able to retrieve.

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Answer 7

thebug Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 12, 2018 7:05 AM in response to léonie

I have tried that a couple of times but it does not update all of the photos. The last time I tried it restored some of the albums with some of the photos but not all of them. Very weird. Also I saved the photos in my current library on a folder on my desktop so I could overwrite as I was not sure that I would be able to restore and keep my existing folder. Do you think it is a time machine problem or photos problem at this stage?

Thank very much for your assistance!

Andrew

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Answer 8

léonie

Level 10

200,645 points

Nov 12, 2018 10:53 PM in response to thebug

You're welcome, Andrew. I am glad you got your pictures back.

If newer pictures from the time after the backup are missing, you can look for them the newer libraries you recovered. If Photos cannot open the new libraries, you can ctrl-click the libraries, and use the command Show Package Contents. Open the Masters folder. The most recent photos will be in "Masters > 2018 > 11" or "Masters > 2018 > 10"

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