SOFTWARE
Ease app-fuelled anxieties with our fixes
Lost iPhoto library Q
I’m running macOS Sierra 10.12.2 on a MacBook Pro, and have about 10,000 pictures in my main iPhoto library, and a smaller library of old scanned images. I moved these to a NAS, which worked fine at first. Now the larger library has suddenly renamed itself, and I’m unable to access the smaller library at all. If I hold the Alt key when opening iPhoto, that smaller library isn’t offered as an option either. How can I find that missing library?
A
Assuming you’ve checked that your NAS is running healthily and hasn’t suffered any problems which might have affected that library, this may well be a result of iPhoto’s age and remaining bugs. iPhoto’s photo libraries consist of a huge number of folders, with their own indexing system and database, which are separated from the metadata that provides information about the images. Trying a manual recovery isn’t really feasible.
Your best prospect is to return to the most recent backup from before this occurred, and use that to migrate to Photos or, if you prefer, to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.
To migrate to Photos, you’ll need to have been using iPhoto 9.6.1, as earlier versions are less successful in the migration process. Work with a copy of the iPhoto library, and keep the original in a safe archive. You’ll also find it better to migrate a locally-stored library, rather than one held on your NAS. Once you’re happy that each library has been converted fully and works properly, you should be able to move them back onto the NAS again.