Photo Library went to Trash

I have a Mac Pro & the PhotoLibrary disappeared into trash. What can I do? I have iCloud & Google photos but I’m concerned some photos are lost. The file won’t allow me to take it out of Trash.

iMac 24″, macOS 15.0

Posted on Oct 28, 2024 10:51 AM

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Posted on Oct 28, 2024 01:11 PM

Hmmm. I don't recognize that particular view of the Trash folder.

Is that what you see when you click the Trash icon in the Dock? Or have you navigated to that folder some other way?

Are you running any anti-virus, clean-up or optimizing apps on your Mac?


Btw - you can rotate your pics before you add them to your post by clicking the screenshot on the desktop, pressing the Spacebar to get a Quick Look, and then click the 'Rotate' icon in the tool bar -



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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Oct 28, 2024 01:11 PM in response to krysia36

Hmmm. I don't recognize that particular view of the Trash folder.

Is that what you see when you click the Trash icon in the Dock? Or have you navigated to that folder some other way?

Are you running any anti-virus, clean-up or optimizing apps on your Mac?


Btw - you can rotate your pics before you add them to your post by clicking the screenshot on the desktop, pressing the Spacebar to get a Quick Look, and then click the 'Rotate' icon in the tool bar -



Oct 28, 2024 01:59 PM in response to krysia36

When I right-click a file in the trash, I get something like you got, but above "Delete Immediately" is "Put Back." That you don't have that is the problem, I guess. Do you have "Put Back" available on other files?


You do have rename as an option. I might try renaming the Photos Library with a different suffix--or just remove the suffix. The Mac will then not see this as a Photos Library but rather as an ordinary folder. You might be able to remove it from the trash, then.


Then again, it may not let you change the suffix. It that case, the next thing to try is a reboot. That should really be the first thing, but it seems a little scary. So I'd try the rename thing first.


Let us know what happens!

Oct 28, 2024 02:02 PM in response to Richard.Taylor

+1 on rebooting.


If a simple reboot of your Mac doesn’t fix things, see if the problem still happens in safe mode.

How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support 


Safe mode will often correct weird software behavior by forcing the OS to do disk repair, clear caches and other housekeeping and disables acceleration and third-party mods. When you're in safe boot, the machine won’t be at its best performance, especially with graphics, but that's expected.


Does the same thing happen while in Safe mode?


You can exit safe mode by restarting your Mac normally.

Oct 28, 2024 05:16 PM in response to krysia36

You should also disable and/or uninstall Norton.

Apps of the nature security/anti-virus/cleaning/optimizing very often are implicated in Mac misbehavior like this. Uninstall it per the guidance found at Norton's website. If that has no positive affect then feel free to reinstall it again after you have solved this problem. Or don't. It really is not needed on Mac.


Some light reading on the subject:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254811968?sortBy=oldest_first


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Photo Library went to Trash

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