Lost 10,000 photos!

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Level 1

8 points

Lost 10,000 photos!

I need help. My MacBook Air was running low on storage so I decided to upgrade my iCloud storage to 200gb.

At this point I didn’t have iCloud photos turned on and had around 10,000 photos stored on my MacBook, these had been previously transferred from an external hard drive.

When I upgraded my iCloud account I turned on the iCloud for photos thinking that it would upload the 10,000 photos to iCloud and free up the space on my Mac. What has instead happened is the photos have completely disappeared and have been replaced with the photos from my phone (around 1,600, my phone always had iCloud photos turned on)

i can’t find the missing 10,000 photos anywhere, I’ve tried everything listed in previous threads. What’s interesting is that my storage on the Mac hasn’t freed up any extra space, so surely they can’t have been deleted? Where are they?

any help appreciated. The MacBook is running High Sierra 10.15.3

Posted on Apr 30, 2020 10:15 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

W30JOB Author

Level 1

8 points

May 2, 2020 1:12 PM in response to W30JOB

For anyone having the same issue i've found my photos. It appears it's something to do with the optimisation of photos. The photos were located in a file labelled "originals" right in the depths of my hard drive. When searching the hard drive I had to find the photos file and right click to "show package contents"..Then right in that file was the folder labelled "originals"

I have no idea why it decided to do that but for some reason when trying to upload them to iCloud it's seperated them from my normal library. I'm so pleased I didn't lose everything

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Answer 2

LACAllen

Level 8

43,500 points

Apr 30, 2020 2:35 PM in response to W30JOB

would upload the 10,000 photos to iCloud and free up the space on my Mac.

That is not how iCloud Photos works. It is a syncing service and the photos will remain, in some fashion, on your Mac.

Using optimize in the Mac's photo library will minimize, but not remove the need for local storage on the Mac.

How long have you been waiting? 10,000 photos may take days or even weeks to sync to iCloud.

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Answer 3

W30JOB Author

Level 1

8 points

Apr 30, 2020 11:52 PM in response to LACAllen

Would all of the photos disappear whilst syncing? I would’ve expected to see them appear in iCloud one by one or at least in batches. It’s been about 15 hours now and not a single photo has from the original photos I had on my Mac has appeared.

The only ones on my Mac now are the 1,600 or so photos thar have been synced from my phone

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Answer 4

W30JOB Author

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8 points

May 1, 2020 2:46 AM in response to W30JOB

I should also add that the storage on my Mac now doesn’t include space for photos, there’s nothing showing at all. Instead, there’s now 66GB of space allocated to “other” which is greyed out

Could it be possible that photos have disappeared into a black hole on my Mac somewhere in between being uploaded to iCloud? They’ve got to be somewhere on the Mac if there’s 66GB of space being used up

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Answer 5

LACAllen

Level 8

43,500 points

May 1, 2020 8:53 AM in response to W30JOB

Could it be possible that photos have disappeared into a black hole on my Mac somewhere in between being uploaded to iCloud? They’ve got to be somewhere on the Mac if there’s 66GB of space being used up

What you say you have done should not have caused this result.

I turned on the iCloud for photos

I assume you don't use Time Machine.

I suggest calling Apple for advice.

https://support.apple.com/contact

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Answer 6

LACAllen

Level 8

43,500 points

May 2, 2020 1:22 PM in response to W30JOB

The photos were located in a file labelled "originals" right in the depths of my hard drive. When searching the hard drive I had to find the photos file and right click to "show package contents"..Then right in that file was the folder labelled "originals"

That is the structure of any Photos database in macOS. Enabling the Photo library is what created this. Are the 1600 iphone photos there as well? If not, you have 2 photo libraries.

When you said The only ones on my Mac now are the 1,600 or so photos thar have been synced from my phone, there was no reason to suspect these 10,000 images were added to your existing Mac local photo library.

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Answer 7

W30JOB Author

Level 1

8 points

May 3, 2020 1:27 AM in response to LACAllen

Nope, the 1600 iPhone photos aren’t among the 10,000 that I’ve found. If there’s 2 libraries then why aren’t they showing in photos?

When the photos went missing the first thing I did was search for other libraries. It’s only when you look right into the depths of the hard drive you can see then. Storage doesn’t show them under photos either, they show up as “other” as stated above.

Seems like it shouldn’t do that. You’re basically saying “that’s what macOS does”, then how come these photos aren’t showing in iCloud, which was what I clicked in the first place

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