How to delete photos from iPhoto album (not only removed from album)

iPhoto has an internal file storage system where it saves all the photos for the events, albums etc.

You notice this, when you select an event and click "Show in folder". Then you see the whole folder with all the pictures in it.

You should treat events or albums as your folders. You can give them custom names and everything.

What I have done is:

• Import all photos to iPhoto
• Delete original files
• Just work with iPhoto (when I want to see the photos in a folder structure, I can choose "Show in folder".

Note: I have heard that you can have an external file storage for your photos with Apperture. This is iPhoto with more functionality for 200 USD, in case you do a lot of work with iPhoto this might be interesting.

Your Library is corrupted.

Download iPhoto Library Manager and use its rebuild function. (In Library Manager it's the FIle -> Rebuild command) Note: this does not require purchasing Library Manager

This will create an entirely new library. It will then copy (or try to) your photos and all the associated metadata and versions to this new Library, and arrange it as close as it can to what you had in the damaged Library. It does this based on information it finds in the iPhoto sharing mechanism - but that means that things not shared won't be there, so no slideshows, books or calendars, for instance - but it should get all your events, albums and keywords, faces and places back.

Because this process creates an entirely new library and leaves your old one untouched, it is non-destructive, and if you're not happy with the results you can simply return to your old one.