PHOTOS restore from crash ! WHAT A MESS!

MID-2011 iMAC

OS 10.13.6 (17G14042)


Basically had to restore C Drive after a rare crash.

PHOTOS would not open


Tried:-

Rename library

Move Library from C Drive to external disc

Copying photos from Masters into C Drive again


'Repair' from the newly named library eventually worked but when I open photos, many of them and videos now seem to to be dated incorrectly and randomly. Viewing / Finding anything is a mess. The lost projects such as slideshows seems permanent. 'People' no longer exists as a means to finding photos. Some videos/ photos are dated 1947 (before I was born!) For example although this video taken in-2012-03-13-20-53-40.mp4 but the original date is give underneath as 1946. Thus it appears completely in the wrong place in Photos. CRAZY...


How can I get my library back to its original state of earlier this month ?


Time Machine doesn't allow restoring this system folder without another complete HD restore I assume.

iMac 27″

Posted on Mar 28, 2025 3:39 AM

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Posted on Mar 28, 2025 4:45 AM

It is not possible to delete the Photos.app. The Photos.app is protected by the System Integrity protection. And you need to use the version of Photos that has been installed by the System.


The "Photos Libraries.photoslibrary" packages are the libraries, where your photos and videos are stored, not in the app. You need to find a working copy of your Photos Library.

Have you restored your Photos Library from a Time Machine backup, as Yer_Man recommended?


You wrote "Copying photos from Masters into C Drive again". If you opened the Photos Library and tried to recover the photos from the Masters folder in the package, you will have recovered only the original image files. All adjustments, face names, metadata, albums are stored outside the Masters folder, in the database files. For the videos the dates may be random, because the videos do not have a standard for the capture date. Try to find photos you have taken at the same time to recover the correct date from the photos. Some cameras write the correct date for a video into the filename. In that case you can try to set the date again from the information in the filename.



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Mar 28, 2025 4:45 AM in response to Dylanophile

It is not possible to delete the Photos.app. The Photos.app is protected by the System Integrity protection. And you need to use the version of Photos that has been installed by the System.


The "Photos Libraries.photoslibrary" packages are the libraries, where your photos and videos are stored, not in the app. You need to find a working copy of your Photos Library.

Have you restored your Photos Library from a Time Machine backup, as Yer_Man recommended?


You wrote "Copying photos from Masters into C Drive again". If you opened the Photos Library and tried to recover the photos from the Masters folder in the package, you will have recovered only the original image files. All adjustments, face names, metadata, albums are stored outside the Masters folder, in the database files. For the videos the dates may be random, because the videos do not have a standard for the capture date. Try to find photos you have taken at the same time to recover the correct date from the photos. Some cameras write the correct date for a video into the filename. In that case you can try to set the date again from the information in the filename.



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Mar 28, 2025 6:02 AM in response to Dylanophile

How are you trying to restore from Time Machine?

You just need to restore the Photos Library, not the complete Mac.


  • Before you try to restore the library, rename the one you are now having, so it will not be overwritten or save it somewhere else.
  • Select the folder, where your Photos Library has been before you had to restore your Mac and open this folder in the Finder.
  • Then enter Time Machine and click in the Timeline on a date when your photos have still been there.
  • Ctrl-Click the Photos Library to restore it and select "Restore"



Sorry, it is right now not convenient for me to switch the system language to English, but I hope you can see in the screenshot, where to click. My screenshot has been taken with macOS15.3.2, but as far as I can remember, it looked very similar in your system version.


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Mar 28, 2025 9:56 AM in response to Dylanophile

One thing about restoring from Time Machine-- it's tempting to see the "photoslibrary" and then drag it to your current Pictures Folder. That might work for some files,

but for a "photoslibrary" you really should use the Restore button. I've had spurious results just dragging and dropping it.

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Mar 29, 2025 2:55 AM in response to Dylanophile

The new forum software is sorting the discussions by default by "rank", not chronologically.


You may want to set the switch to to "Sort by Oldest", to see all replies in the order proper chronological order:


You can also change this in your User Preferences.

  • Click your avatar in the upper right corner of the page to open the Profile and Preferences. Go down to the "Other Preferences" and select the sort order you want. It will be applied, whenever you sign into your account.



Have you restarted your Mac after you restored the library? That might take care of the "Closing Library".



Have you by any chance been using iCloud Photos? If your library is in iCloud, the easiest way to restore a working copy of it would be to create a new, empty library and to let it sync with iCloud Photos.



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Mar 28, 2025 5:31 AM in response to léonie

Leonie-thanks for getting in touch.


I never wanted to delete Photos just get it looking like it did before the crash. I can see why the workaround to rebuild it lost the adjustments/database etc - but how do I restore to the way it was in early March when any attempt to do it via Time Machine produces this?

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Mar 28, 2025 5:41 AM in response to Dylanophile


Photos Library 2 is what has produced the mess. Trying to use the 'original' library just produces a 'corrupt' data message. They are around 100 GB each - I am thinking I can junk the corrupt one ?


Thinking ahead- I fear am stuck with this Photos version 2. If I upgrade my machine as I plan to do I will still need a big enough SSD drive where the system and Pictures reside by default I assume. My current/old HDD is 1 TB.

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Mar 28, 2025 9:47 AM in response to Yer_Man

I get that but trying to restore the original library via Time Machine didn’t work, so I tried to restore the app thinking that was possible to get it operating as in early March with all the library files intact.


I will try to use TM again to restore the library as Leonie suggested.

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PHOTOS restore from crash ! WHAT A MESS!

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