iPhoto Library delete all photos- Time Machine back up cannot find photos either

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Photo Library - all photos gone. Please help
Hi everyone. Please be gentle as I am not an expert but I need your help.

I have a macbook mac os x 10.5.8- it has about 3 years old.

I use iPhoto where I store all my picts. iPhoto '09, version 8.1.2 (424)

On August 10th, I did the last back up on time machine. (external driver)

On August 15th, all the pictures from iPhoto are gone. I did not erase them. Look into Mac, iphoto library, libraries, documents, etc. but I could not find anything.

I opened the August 10th back up on Time Machine. I clicked iPhoto, and open time machine. It does not open the Time Machine iPhoto back up done on August 10th nor the previous ones. It gets freeze.

I look into iphoto library- nothing in there (neither in my mac nor in the Time Machine Back up)

The only back ups I have it is one I have done manually and have the pictures until February 2011. After that is when I started using Time Machine.

Genious rep at apple store looked at it, but he could not find the pictures either, he suggested to do a data recovery (which is VERY expensive) in order to recover the pictures. He said the pictures are there.

There is nothing on Trash (iPhoto or Mac's trash)

Can you please help me? I am not sure what to do.

Thank you!
Sil
 
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Your Mac's Specs
Mac Mini i5 (2014 High Sierra), iPhone X, Apple Watch, iPad Pro 12.9, AppleTV (4)
If you Open Time Machine, go back to August 10th, look in Pictures and copy the iPhoto Library to your desktop.

Exit Time Machine.

Hold Option down and start iPhoto, you'll be prompted to select a library, choose the one on your desktop.

If your photos are not in this library then they have been backed up on that date (for whatever reason).

You can repeat this process going gradually further back in 'Time', hopefully you'll find a library that's intact.

If none of your library files are working then I'd concur with the Genius you spoke to and expensive data recovery is likely the next recourse of action.
 
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Many thanks mrplow for your quick reply.

Pictures are not in Time Machine iPhoto library on August 10th or before that.I don't know why. I have not added exceptions to my Time Machine back ups.

Genious rep said that the photos can be found if I do an expensive data recovery.

Does anyone know of a recommendable Data Recovery Company in London please?

Many thanks,
Sil
 
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Timemachine did not back up 7,000 photos.

Thew same thing happened to me, only worse. I lost 7,000 pictures, including honeymoon photo. I bought a new Macbook Pro laptop and a dedicated external hard drive for timemachine. Turns out every single photo downloaded to iphoto since I started using the MacBook was not backed up by Timemachine. I found this out when "genius" at Apple Store deleted two iphoto libraries, leaving me with one that went up to the date I satrted using my new laptop (in other words, only photos imported from old computer remained).
I am absolutely dying right now, and no one can help.

Did you have any luck, ultimately?

Photo Library - all photos gone. Please help
Hi everyone. Please be gentle as I am not an expert but I need your help.

I have a macbook mac os x 10.5.8- it has about 3 years old.

I use iPhoto where I store all my picts. iPhoto '09, version 8.1.2 (424)

On August 10th, I did the last back up on time machine. (external driver)

On August 15th, all the pictures from iPhoto are gone. I did not erase them. Look into Mac, iphoto library, libraries, documents, etc. but I could not find anything.

I opened the August 10th back up on Time Machine. I clicked iPhoto, and open time machine. It does not open the Time Machine iPhoto back up done on August 10th nor the previous ones. It gets freeze.

I look into iphoto library- nothing in there (neither in my mac nor in the Time Machine Back up)

The only back ups I have it is one I have done manually and have the pictures until February 2011. After that is when I started using Time Machine.

Genious rep at apple store looked at it, but he could not find the pictures either, he suggested to do a data recovery (which is VERY expensive) in order to recover the pictures. He said the pictures are there.

There is nothing on Trash (iPhoto or Mac's trash)

Can you please help me? I am not sure what to do.

Thank you!
Sil
 

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