Recover Deleted iPhoto Library and Photos on Mac

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How can I recover an iPhoto library that was accidentally deleted on my Mac?

"How can I recover deleted iPhoto Library on Mac? Need some suggestions or guidance here. Feeling so stupid as I accidentally moved my iPhoto Library to Trash and emptied it securely a few days ago...

"My friends suggested that I could recover the deleted iPhoto Library via Time Machine. However, I have no clue how to use this application on my Mac. Could someone please assist me in restoring the lost photos from the deleted and securely emptied iPhoto Library and guide me on how to enable Time Machine? I desperately need those photos back."

According to Apple Support Communities, there's still a chance of retrieving your lost photos even after you delete the iPhoto Library, and the app itself can also be restored. Read on and follow the solutions provided, and you'll learn how to effectively recover your lost photos after accidentally deleting the iPhoto Library. (The following methods also apply to restoring deleted photos and Photos Library on the latest Mac computers and with a new macOS installation.)

Part 1: Recover Deleted iPhoto Library on Mac

Data is always more important than apps or hardware, so your first step after accidentally deleting your iPhoto Library on a Mac should be to try to recover the lost photos. Your best bet is not to do this from the Trash.

According to Apple Support Communities, there's very little chance of recovering photos once you've deleted an iPhoto library from your Mac, except from the Trash. Here are two methods you can use to recover a deleted iPhoto library and its photos on your Mac.

Method 1: Recover Deleted iPhoto Library Photos on Mac without Time Machine

If you didn't have Time Machine running and emptied the Trash after deleting iPhoto Library, then you won't be able to recover deleted iPhoto Library from Time Machine. If you can't recover deleted iPhoto Library from TM, try using Data Recovery Wizard for Mac tool to help you.

Mac Data Recovery software allows users to recover various types of files with just a few simple clicks, including deleted iPhoto libraries. It offers the highest level of recovery in all instances of data loss. You can now download the free trial version and evaluate its content recovery capabilities.

Stay focused.

1. 1. This is a trial version that allows you to scan and preview all your lost photos without payment. You can purchase the license to recover your lost photos after verifying that the software works effectively.
2. 2. To prevent further data loss, it's recommended to back up your valuable files immediately using Time Machine after following the photo recovery steps below.

Note: You can make it more secure and reliable by creating a backup first by clicking “Disk Backup” on the left, and then restoring from the backup image, in case any further damage is caused to the photos in your Mac library.

Step 1: Finding the Lost Photos

Launch the Mac Data Recovery Wizard, hover the mouse over the system drive that contains the “Photos Library,” and click “Search for Lost Files.”

Select the location and scan for lost Mac photos

Step 2: Find an image from the gallery

When the scan is finished, click “Photos” under the “Paths” tab. All of your missing photos will be listed here.

Step 3: Restore the photos from the library

Double-click the photo to preview it, select the correct option, and then click “Recover” to save the picture to another secure location on your Mac.

Once the recovery is complete, you'll see that your deleted iPhoto library has been restored. To view the recovered photos, you'll also need to import the recovered iPhoto library into the iPhoto Library folder on your Mac:

Open iPhoto > File > Switch to Library > select the recovered iPhoto library > click OK.

That's where you can look at and reuse your photos again.

Method 2: Restore Deleted iPhoto Library Photos from Time Machine on Mac

As many users know, Time Machine is a backup application. If you run this app on your Mac and then delete an iPhoto library, it will create a backup of the deleted photos. You can launch the Time Machine app and revert to a time before you deleted the iPhoto library, and then restore the deleted iPhoto library with the photos.

This also works for restoring missing “Photos Library.”

Step 1: Connect the Time Machine backup drive to your Mac, and launch Time Machine from System Preferences.

Step 2. Scroll down the timeline on the right, and click the backup you want (the date of the last backup).

Navigate to the backup of your iPhoto library (by default, the iPhoto library is located in the “Home>Pictures>iPhoto Library” folder), select it, and then click “Restore” to recover your data.

The time it takes to repair an iPhoto Library depends on its size.

Part 2: Rebuilding Your iPhoto Library on a Mac

If the photo recovery is complete, but the recovered photos are not appearing in iPhoto, or if iPhoto is unresponsive or not working on your Mac, don't worry. You'll just need to rebuild your iPhoto library.

Another troubleshooting step you can try is rebuilding your iPhoto Library on a Mac. Here's how:

The steps to rebuild your iPhoto library are:

Step 1: Hold down the Command and Option keys, and then click the iPhoto icon.

When prompted with a dialog box that has a Rebuild option, check the Rebuild iPhoto Library box and click Rebuild to confirm.

Steps to fix the Photos library:

On newer Macs with the latest macOS (like Catalina or Mojave), you can repair the Photos library so that the Photos app will run on your Mac again.

Conclusions

Mac Data Recovery Software – Data Recovery Wizard for Mac can help all levels of Mac users to easily and effectively recover lost photos from iPhoto Library that were accidentally deleted. It can also be used to recover data on Mac when you do not have a Time Machine backup for the lost data.

Both methods should effectively recover your deleted iPhoto library. If you have other file recovery issues on your Mac, refer to our dedicated guide on how to perform Mac file recovery for more assistance.