iphoto

[Angie]

I had an iPhoto library of 2000 photos. I wanted to create another iphoto library. I followed instructions in Help for creating a new one, giving it a name. I now cannot find the original library with the photos in it. I followed the instructions again for selecting and switching back to the original, but without luck.

I think my photos are in iPhoto as originals, but not organised in the albums. How can I retrieve my original library with all it albums? I hate the thought of having to go through 2000 pics again and sorting? What on earth went wrong?

 

[casdvm]

In Finder, look in your Pictures folder for an item entitled iPhoto Library. It should have a miniature iPhoto icon next to it. That should be your original iPhoto Library. You should only need to double click on that for iPhoto to open it.

If it is truly gone (which would be hard to believe), I hope you have been using Time Machine.

Good Luck,

 

[Angie]

Thanks for suggestion. Yes, the photos are there but not as organised in my albums in my iPhoto Library. They are just raw material. Is there any way I can recover them as organised? More importantly, what seems to have gone wrong as I followed instructions in Help about setting up a second library.

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

If you haven't lost your 2000 photos, then that is a huge sigh of relief! I would strongly suggest you back up your photos to an external hd as I know how I would feel if I lost my most precious photo collection.

Usually, to create a new iPhoto Library you hold down the Option key as you launch iPhoto (from the Dock OR the Apps folder) ... then in the window that opens you choose the Library you want to open OR you create and name a new library.

Whenever you launch iPhoto is chooses the last library it opened as the Default library unless you hold down the Opt key and choose another Library.

If you hold the Opt + the Command key and click to launch iPhoto, you will see a window in which you can rebuild the iPhoto Library and there are several options to choose from.

I once had an issue with iPhoto and certain Albums I had spent a lot of time creating, were lost. All I could do because I didn't have a back up, was to re-create them ... it was very frustrating but there was nothing else but to just redo them and back them up.

However, it does sound odd that you should loose your albums simply by creating a new Library.

Did you make any changes within the iPhoto Library Hierarchy on your HD? What version of Mac OS X & iPhoto are you using?

Do you still have the albums in the Library sidebar?

 

[Angie]

Many thanks to two respondents who helped me with iPhoto. Have now managed to recover the library with its albums intact. Am now going to check that everything is backed up securely.

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

That's terrific news Angie

Do you mind letting us know how you solved this, just in case someone else comes here with the same or similar problem?