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sivart · Feb 13, 2005, 12:58 PM

hey. i imported my pictures to my mini and added them to the iphoto library. then i moved the library to my external hard drive. i restarted iphoto and it told me that the library was not found. so i pointed iphoto to my external drive. all was fine till the external drive died. now my drive is disconnected and my photos still pop up in iphoto :S. and i cannot find the files anywhere on the internal hard drive. anyone know where they are?! in system files or something? (sorry im a switcher)
cheers
si\/

juanvaldes · Feb 13, 2005, 04:15 PM

iPhoto seems to be very stubborn about where the files go. Have you looked in ~/Pictures/iPhoto/ ?

Gavin · Feb 14, 2005, 12:59 AM

That's really weird.

Maybe instead of using the library from the external drive you imported them back into your Photo folder. Something glitchy about it being on an external drive?

You can always search for '.jpg' or 'Library.iPhoto' in the finder (under the file menu or hit command f)

sivart · Feb 14, 2005, 04:26 PM

nope its not in the photos folder. and i've searched for .jpg and the library.iphoto thing. but the only stuff that pops up are the normal .jpgs in the system. 149 files i think? i have just over 2000 pics btw in the library

saddino · Feb 14, 2005, 04:47 PM

I keep my photos on an external as well.

To see where iPhoto thinks your library is:

1) Open ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iPhoto.plist
2) Look for <key> titled RootDirectory.
3) The <string> following that key is the current iPhoto library.

And the AlbumData.xml file in that directory will contains links to your thumbnails and original images. Newer versions of iPhoto also have a Thumbnail cache, so maybe that's what you're seeing.

sivart · Feb 14, 2005, 05:23 PM

haha guess what? in the preferences folder there is no com.apple.iphoto.plist file. great huh. whats goin on!?

saddino · Feb 14, 2005, 05:37 PM

Originally posted by sivart:
haha guess what? in the preferences folder there is no com.apple.iphoto.plist file. great huh. whats goin on!?

Hmm, what version of iPhoto are you running? Try looking here: ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iApps.plist

sivart · Feb 14, 2005, 05:40 PM

im running the ilife 5.0 suite. and nope i have no com.apple.iapps.plist file either. i have a com.apple.ipod.plist though. guess that dont help though

saddino · Feb 14, 2005, 05:43 PM

Originally posted by sivart:
im running the ilife 5.0 suite. and nope i have no com.apple.iapps.plist file either. i have a com.apple.ipod.plist though. guess that dont help though

Are you sure you're looking at your own Preferences (in the Library folder in your home directory), and not the System ones?

sivart · Feb 14, 2005, 05:50 PM

ah ok got it. it says that its in the ~/pictures folder. well i cant see it. is there such thing as hidden folders or something"?

sivart · Feb 16, 2005, 02:08 PM

yo. anyone else think they can help me? i think saddino gave up on me lol. everything in the iphoto help says that the folder should be in the pictures folder. yeah but i moved it to my external drive where i deleted it later on. now i just need to get to the actual files and make a new library in a place where i will always find it. please help!!!!

sivart · Feb 16, 2005, 02:12 PM

ok i just looked at the plist preference file again. now my external drive is connected, the rootdirectory entry points to the external. but the library is not on there! unless when i "formatted" the external drive before it didnt do it properly and left it on there. well the only weird thing is that when my external is disconnected the library still shows up, so it MUST be on my mini yeah??? this is driving me crazy

saddino · Feb 16, 2005, 02:15 PM

Originally posted by sivart:
ok i just looked at the plist preference file again. now my external drive is connected, the rootdirectory entry points to the external. but the library is not on there! unless when i "formatted" the external drive before it didnt do it properly and left it on there. well the only weird thing is that when my external is disconnected the library still shows up, so it MUST be on my mini yeah??? this is driving me crazy

Hey there. Okay I'm back.

When your external is disconnected, the images you see are from the cache, unless: iPhoto is fully functional when your external is disconnected. Is it? Can you open/edit pictures, export them, etc.?

Now, when you external is reconnected? Is iPhoto fully functional?

sivart · Feb 16, 2005, 02:27 PM

hey! its fully functional when the external is disconnected. i just found something. i opened iphoto with the option button held down and it asked me to find the library. i chose that and it showed me the library! but i still dont know where it is on my hard drive. i have a window shot of it, but i cannot upload it yet because photobucket is down atm

sivart · Feb 16, 2005, 02:31 PM

hey now you've brought my attention to the export feature... i'm exporting all my photos to a new folder and am gonna make that my library. thanks for your help saddino, if i have any other problems i'll post again! i'll upload them screen shots still though. weird problem

sivart · 05:36 PM

[Removed oversize inline image. All inline images must be no wider than 480 pixels. --tooki]
that comes up straight away. is there anything like an address bar kind of thing for mac so i can know the path???
thanks

saddino · Feb 16, 2005, 05:01 PM

Press the key combo: command-uparrow

That'll take you one level up. Keep going until you find out where you are!

sivart · Feb 16, 2005, 05:04 PM

haha its too late now. now i've got my new library i think the other library is lost forever

pah i'll live with it i suppose. thanks for the help saddino

tooki · Feb 16, 2005, 05:37 PM

Originally posted by sivart:
is there anything like an address bar kind of thing for mac so i can know the path???
thanks

Command-click on the name of a Finder window -- it'll become a menu showing all the path levels.

tooki

Chuckit · Feb 16, 2005, 05:45 PM

Originally posted by tooki:
Command-click on the name of a Finder window -- it'll become a menu showing all the path levels.

This works on most document windows as well (in TextEdit, Photoshop, etc.).

tooki · Feb 16, 2005, 05:49 PM

Yup, it's been that way since the Mac OS 9 days, in most well-cultured apps.

tooki

saddino · Feb 16, 2005, 07:55 PM

Originally posted by tooki:
Command-click on the name of a Finder window -- it'll become a menu showing all the path levels.

tooki

Unfortunately, that doesn't work in the Choose File/Folder dialog (which is where he was in iPhoto). It would be nice if they had a path selector/method in there!

tooki · Feb 16, 2005, 08:11 PM

Right, but it has the menu with the path right in front of you already.

tooki