MacOS – iPhoto library was deleted, had me create a new library. Went into Finder & don’t have the “Masters” folder. Where are the original photos

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I did a little research, & I found numerous websites directing me to go to iPhoto on Finder, right click, & click on "Show Package Contents". When I click on it, I am directed to a folder that says "Contents".

However, when I open that folder, I was promised there would be a folder called "Masters", but I found 8 folders and 4 other items- none with the name "Masters" & none of the folders had my original pictures.

To be more specific, the names of the folders I have are: _CodeSignature, _MASReceipt, Frameworks, MacOS, Library, PlugIns, Resources, and XCPServices.

Are my photos gone forever?

Best Answer

I think ...

That's a bad beginning. You need to know what you did.

I hit create library, and all my photos were deleted and I was redirected to iPhoto's introduction page

When you entered a name, did it ask "___ exists. Replace?"

...go to iPhoto on Finder... the names of the folders I have are: _CodeSignature, _MASReceipt, Frameworks, MacOS, Library, PlugIns, Resources, and XCPServices.

That's the iPhoto application. Not the iPhoto Library. Look in Home -> Pictures for something like "Theresa's iPhoto Library" and double-click on it.

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MacOS – Photos (OS X Yosemite / El Capitan) – show original in Finder

Photos expects you to export unmodified originals as copies, to preserve the integrity of the internal file management and for collection protection in the same way a database works – it's central to keeping the iCloud storage of your photo collection synced, stable, and functional.

Once you have exported a photo, you can then use mdls and mdfind to see what the "copy" looks like and where the original was stored.

In my case, they are all in ~/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary/Masters/2015/04/08 and such stored by year, month and date for my US locale computer. You'll only have to do this exercise a few times to nail down the internal storage for each time Apple chooses to change it going forward.

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Hard linked files share the same inode (which kind of identifies the file in the filesystem). So what you can do is to get the path of two photos which should be the same ("Reveal in Finder" in the old application, probably something similar in the new), open Terminal and run

ls -li /path/from/old/app.jpg /path/from/new/app.jpg

to see whether the number is really the same.

Best Answer

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