after copying my photos (about 3000+) from my Windows PC to my Mac, i imported them into iPhoto 6. i imported them folder-by-folder, so as to preserve the old folder names and make them as film roll labels. after importing them, i trashed the duplicates (a lot of them) and edited some photos. i also trashed the source folders (outside the iPhoto library folder), since they have supposedly been copied into the iPhoto library. please note that my iPhoto 6 was configured to copy the photos as they were added to the library. then, i emptied the trash folder in iPhoto 6 (not the "global" trash folder in finder). to my surprise, iPhoto now showed blank boxes of my photos. i clicked "Show File" but no window appeared. i tried manually finding them (using finder) in my iPhoto library, but to no avail. what could have happened? i tried rebuilding the iPhoto library (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107947), but it did not work. good thing i did not empty the "global" trash folder in finder. i manually imported the trashed"source folders again to iPhoto. this time, the blank boxes re-appeared, and another set of the same photos (with the same folder and file names) was made. so, i trashed the duplicates again. now, i'm not sure if the problem will re-occur if the emply the iPhoto trash folder. what could have been the problem? any advise to prevent this from happening again? if this will be the case, i would be hesistant to configure iPhoto to copy the photos as i add them to my library. what do you think? thanks in advance.
i just dragged the source folders into the iPhoto display pane. that initiated the importing process. that also allowed me to preserve the source folder name, and make that my film roll name.
In iPhoto, to check where your actual photo is stored in Finder just 'ctrl'+click on the roll or photo then click 'Show File'. This way you will know for sure if your photos are copied to your iPhoto directory or not.
actually, i did that after iPhoto showed me those blank boxes. but, no window appeared. maybe this means that iPhoto could find the files. i tried manually finding them (using finder) in my iPhoto library, but I did not find them too. now, i'm not sure what really happened. maybe iPhoto did not copy the files at all, even though it was configured to do so? did emptying the iPhoto trash folder have something to do with this? or, was this just a case of a mysteriously bad day?
Moderators, I also have existing blank boxes in my iPhoto library display, but when I click "show file" it exists in my library. Why is it blank in the library display? I have iPhoto 6.0.4 Thanks in advance
hi cesar. your case may be different form mine. in fact, you may be in a better situation than i am. since you can find your photos by using "Show File", then yours may just be a case of a corrupted iPhoto library file that needs to be rebuilt. you may follow the step-by-step instructions on this link to do that - http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107947 of course, you need to back-up your iPhoto library first before proceeding. just to make sure you do not lose any of your photo files. i hope this helps.
Well, you imported your pictures properly. It's strange that they disappeared when you emptied your iPhoto trash. You did everything right, you managed your photos from within iPhoto the whole time, never going through the actual iPhoto folder structure using Finder.
thanks Patrick! the only time i remember going through finder was when i trashed the original / source folders, which were located outside the iPhoto library folder. i did this knowing that iPhoto was configured to copy the photos imported into it. that shouldn't have affected iPhoto, right?