Zombie photos in iPhoto 6.0.6 Library

[John Varela]

I posted this to the forum but got no response.

There are photos that have been deleted from the iPhoto data base but remain in ~/Pictures/iPhoto Library/...

There is no way to access these pictures using iPhoto. They can only be seen using Finder. They are complete files, both Original and Modified, and can be viewed though not in iPhoto.

I want to purge them. Is there a way to do garbage collection to clean up the iPhoto Library?

Or, since the iPhoto data base seems not to know anything about them, is it safe to delete them using the Finder?

[djackmac]

Originally Posted by John Varela

I want to purge them. Is there a way to do garbage collection to clean up the iPhoto Library?

Or, since the iPhoto data base seems not to know anything about them, is it safe to delete them using the Finder?

If you want to purge the iphoto library, I'm sure there is a way to do it in applications/automator http://www.macosxautomation.com/automator/index.html

Otherwise it should be safe to delete them in finder if they are not showing in iphoto.

[Satcomer]

Did you go into iPhoto and Empty the iPhoto Trash from there yet?

[skybolt]

And, just to be sure, you DID trash them from the iPhoto app by putting them in the iPhoto trash, not the trash on the dock? That could have caused the issue in the first place.

[John Varela]

Some of these photos were trashed many months, maybe years ago. I only discovered them recently.

[Jesse714]

Well you just want to delete them?
You can open your documents, it will say iPhoto Library- Right click- Show package contents, delete them that way.

[John Varela]

Originally Posted by Jesse714

Well you just want to delete them?
You can open your documents, it will say iPhoto Library- Right click- Show package contents, delete them that way.

It is in the Pictures, not Documents, hierarchy, right clicking on a folder doesn't offer a "show package contents" option, and the last thing I want to do is delete the entire library.

But thanks for trying.

Deleting the zombie photos means comparing ~Pictures/iPhoto Library/Originals with iPhoto's display of its Library to identify excess photos, then deleting the excess Original, Modified (if any), and Thumbnail (if any, and assuming that there are no Modifieds or Thumbnails unaccompanied by Originals). I know how to do that, but doing it for over 7,000 photos in the Library will be a pain.

I was hoping that there was somewhere an application that would housekeep the iPhoto library automatically, but evidently not.

Lacking an app, I wanted reassurance that deleting photos using the Finder won't screw up the Library. As far as I can tell, no one has demonstrated that it's safe.