Need to find photos and phots app wont open - repair wont work

[gwebstech]

Hi guys

IM trying to get all the images off of my MAC onto some cloud storage, i know i have osme other images on this mac but i cant find them anywhere. Im guessing they were in iphoto/photos app but i cant open it.

Ive tried the option+command to try and repair it but it doesnt do anything.

Ive looked under users in finder to see if i can see anything but i cant, can anyone help advise what to do?

ive found a few on icloud but not many

its a 2011 Macbook pro, High Sierra 10.13.6 - not sure what else you need to know

thanks

 

[MacInWin]

What do you mean "I can't open it?" What happens when you click on the app? And is it iPhoto or Photos? (Those are two different apps.)

I suspect most of your images are in the iPhoto library. (or Photos library)

Tell us what is really happening and we'll see what can be done.

 

[gwebstech]

What do you mean "I can't open it?" What happens when you click on the app? And is it iPhoto or Photos? (Those are two different apps.)

I suspect most of your images are in the iPhoto library. (or Photos library)

Tell us what is really happening and we'll see what can be done.

'

Hi mate

thanks for the reply, when i click photos, it wont start- it tries to start and the message that pops up says:

photos cannot find library "photos.library.photoslibrary" This library was last found on a drive named “NO NAME”. Please attach that drive and click “Try Again”.

most of the options are greyed out so i cant use any of those either

 

[MacInWin]

So, where is the external drive you used previously? All of your images are stored in the database listed in the message, and that is stored on the external you used before.

Now, you can try to search for "photos.lbrary.photoslibrary" on the internal drive with Spotlight, and if you find it, you can open Photos preferences and on the first tab point the location and then use it. However, if it is there but with no images in it, that is because when Photos is first launched it creates that database in the default location but it has no images stored until you add them. So while there may be such file somewhere on the internal drive, it may or may not have the images that were stored on the external drive.

The better way, most likely, is to get that external back attached to the system so Photos can find it.

 

[gwebstech]

So, where is the external drive you used previously? All of your images are stored in the database listed in the message, and that is stored on the external you used before.

Now, you can try to search for "photos.lbrary.photoslibrary" on the internal drive with Spotlight, and if you find it, you can open Photos preferences and on the first tab point the location and then use it. However, if it is there but with no images in it, that is because when Photos is first launched it creates that database in the default location but it has no images stored until you add them. So while there may be such file somewhere on the internal drive, it may or may not have the images that were stored on the external drive.

The better way, most likely, is to get that external back attached to the system so Photos can find it.

ive not used an external drive though, thats what i dont get, even if i had, the app should still load up properly surely? i cant find any images attached to the photobooth app either.

Im terrible at backing thing up which is why im confused

 

[MacInWin]

No, Photos won't open without a database. You can, I think hold down Option and launch Photos with that held down and it will start with a list of library files it finds for you to select, if it finds one or more. That's about the only thing you may be able to do at this point. But to clarify, at some point in the past there must have been a external device (drive, thumb drive, something) attached for Photos to use. Or somebody pointed to it in Preferences at some point. It didn't change on its own.

 

[gwebstech]

No, Photos won't open without a database. You can, I think hold down Option and launch Photos with that held down and it will start with a list of library files it finds for you to select, if it finds one or more. That's about the only thing you may be able to do at this point. But to clarify, at some point in the past there must have been a external device (drive, thumb drive, something) attached for Photos to use. Or somebody pointed to it in Preferences at some point. It didn't change on its own.

the option thing doesnt work, im at a loss. Its baffling me. Im just running a program looking for lost images, its nearly done

thanks anyway

 

[MacInWin]

the option thing doesnt work, im at a loss. Its baffling me. Im just running a program looking for lost images, its nearly done

thanks anyway

What happened when you held down option and launched Photos? Did you get any response at all?

 

[IWT]

I don't know if this will help; but in normal circumstances, your Photos Library will be found here;

Open Finder > Macintosh HD > Users > Your Name > Pictures > Photos Library.photoslibrary

You can then determine whether there are any photographs in there by clicking on it.

Ian

 

[gwebstech]

What happened when you held down option and launched Photos? Did you get any response at all?

no mate, nothing

 

[gwebstech]

I don't know if this will help; but in normal circumstances, your Photos Library will be found here;

Open Finder > Macintosh HD > Users > Your Name > Pictures > Photos Library.photoslibrary

You can then determine whether there are any photographs in there by clicking on it.

Ian

if i do that to> pictures/ it just takes me to photo booth, and thats empty too

 

[MacInWin]

Did you HOLD DOWN the Option key as you started Photos? Not a tap, but hold down? The reason I ask is that if you really did not get anything with that, your installation of Photos is broken. Holding down the Option key tells Photos, as it launches, not to try to open anything, just present the window and search for options on your drive to suggest to you. If you did not get the window, either you didn't hold down Option long enough or Photos will need to be reinstalled on your system.

 

[IWT]

Jake,

It looks as if the Photos Library.photoslibrary is missing (or possibly empty) and "Photo Booth is empty too".

The latter doesn't mean much but the former tends to confirm your suggestion that the Photos app is broken.

Ian

 

[gwebstech]

Did you HOLD DOWN the Option key as you started Photos? Not a tap, but hold down? The reason I ask is that if you really did not get anything with that, your installation of Photos is broken. Holding down the Option key tells Photos, as it launches, not to try to open anything, just present the window and search for options on your drive to suggest to you. If you did not get the window, either you didn't hold down Option long enough or Photos will need to be reinstalled on your system.

Yes mate, held it down whilst clicking the app and it wont start

 

[badshoehabit]

Random thoughts

1) Have you ever used Time Machine?
2) Have you tried Finder > Applications > Photos

 

[MacInWin]

Sue, I took his comment in post #5 to be that the OP doesn't have a backup.

What is curious is that Photos thinks the library is on an external drive that the OP says doesn't exist. Then Photos won't open to allow creating of a new library, which means Photos is somehow broken, plus the Photo Booth is broken as well. And the system is not set to sync because only a few were on iCloud.

Basically, we have an impossible situation. About the only thing that makes any sense to do is to reinstall Photos, try to get it working properly, then go searching for the library. If it's not on the internal, and if the external drive doesn't exist, then the pictures are gone.

@gwebstech, one thing to try is to open Finder and in the upper right corner of the Finder window is a spyglass icon. In that block type "photoslibrary" without the quotes. Finder will show you all of the libraries it finds. If it finds your missing library, right click on the name and then pick "Open" to see if Photos will open the library at all.

 

[ferrarr]

@MacInWin I didn't think "NoName" referred to an external drive, just a drive with a different name than the current startup drive.

 

[MacInWin]

Bob, if the external drive has not been assigned a name by the formatting process, when it mounts it is given the name "NoName" in Finder. Not changed on the drive itself, just for display in the Finder window and for the system to use. So, the error message the OP referred to says that the Photos library was last stored on a nameless drive. Unless the machine has multiple internal drives, that would be an external unit. I see that a lot with external thumb drives. They don't have a name, so they mount as "NoName" until I reformat them and assign a name.

 

[ferrarr]

Sometimes, that same thing happens with internal drives. I've seen it happen, when users erase/wipe the internal drive, but leave the name blank.

 

[gwebstech]

thnks guys

no results for library in finder, alli can think of is last time it had a repair for something im sure that guy backed up something to a USB disk and im guessing that would be photos, but i saw some of these images i m after a few months ago and def not stored anything onto a drive since then. The repair was a year or 2 ago and im sure id have noticed that i couldnt use photo booth since then.

And even if the repair guy did back up my images, surely that wouldnt back up and remove everything from photo booth too?

I have a complete back up from a few years ago but ive moved house so ill have to try and find that and see if some of the images are on there.

Ill try and reinstall photos but i imagine that requires a full reinstall of the OS?