06-06-2009, 12:00 AM

My iPhoto Library is empty. What happened moments earlier:

I opened iPhoto and copied 2 photos to my desktop and closed iPhoto. Few hours later I connected my iPod to synchronize, and a message pop out saying …(don’t remember exactly the words..) that wasn’t a iPhoto library, if I wanted to synchronize anyway… At this moment I made the stupidest move ever. I clicked ‘yes’… I don’t know what I was thinking…, anyway, I end up losing all full size photos from my iPod as well. I tried to find iPhoto library through spotlight, and didn't bring anything. I finally found it through 'Onyx' in "Macintosh HD/Users/user A/Pictures/iPhoto Library", but its size is 8.2Mb. In Onyx shows more files in this folder, which I can't see in Finder.

Another thing is that a couple of weeks ago I exchange my G4 for this G5 with a friend. He needed a laptop. He transferred everything from the G4 to this G5 via firewire. I was user 'A' in G4. The transfer wasn't working, so we created a new account 'B' in G5. So, now I have user 'A' and 'B', but I always log as 'A', my previous user in G4, which had Leopard with iPhoto 08. Now, it's iPhoto 09.

The thing is.., the iPhoto was working fine the night before (slower than the usual, it was taking ages to delete a picture from iPhoto).

I run Disk Utility.app, and seems to be fine.

Another thing, I run the 'Rescue II' and it brought me just deleted pictures from my friend. Which could be good news, means, mine weren't erased...., I don't know if it's good, actually.

Even if I rescue the 2490 pictures, I wouldn’t know how to put them back again in iPhoto the way they were (key words, faces, albums, etc.).

The BIG question: Did I loose everything? Well, at least I saved 2 of them in my desktop..

I would appreciate your help, please, please, as soon as someone can, because I think the more I use the computer the worse. Thank you.

06-06-2009, 03:56 AM

Try opening iPhoto while holding the option key. You will get a library menu giving you the option of creating new library or opening different library. Select open and browse to the library "Macintosh HD/Users/user A/Pictures/iPhoto Library".

Good Luck

06-07-2009, 07:04 PM

Thanks rshames,

Actually, the library had gone completely, iPhoto couldn't find it at first. The library in "Macintosh HD/Users/user A/Pictures/iPhoto Library" was created the moment I opened the iPhoto again, which is empty. Now, having a closer look in the "rescued files" (zillions of them..), I found part of my pictures. I'm still working to see how much I can get back. And, as a result, I'll have all of them created in the same date (the day I rescue them).

But, the question remains on this forum: HOW MY IPHOTO LIBRARY DELETED ITSELF? Nobody else has access to this computer. No, I haven't deleted by mistake. I didn't even knew where iPhoto Library was. Even if I "accidentally" had deleted, it would be in the trash. I have been reading through the forums about it, and some people had the same problem with no answers.

Is iPhoto reliable? Even if I back up everything, all the work giving names, keywords, events, faces, albums to huge amount of pictures, all go away.

Thanks rshames.

06-19-2009, 07:59 AM

Well, I heard someone said in a website (sorry I forgot the link), if u are already handling thousand of images through your mac, it is recommended for u to use Aperture instead.

06-19-2009, 10:22 AM

Thank you, almanb.
I had a look at Aperture in Apple site. Seems to be better. When I reach again considerable amount of pictures, I'll go for Aperture. It will take awhile, since I lost my enthusiasm for now. Thank you for the tip!

09-22-2010, 09:06 PM

I just found out the same also, i lost all of my pictures!!!!

09-25-2010, 05:49 PM

I too have lost iPhoto! It seems for good this time. I uploaded 7 pictures from a folder on my desktop and now that is all that is shown when I open iPhoto. I have held down option and command an have clicked on "rebuild the library iPhoto database. What the heck happened?