iphoto library disaster from 0-25k "photos" in 1 sad keystroke

[enoach]

ok--I'm new in the Mac owner-thing...

I was setting up iphoto, i hit some deeply unwise keystroke: and now I have 25k+ "photos" in my library--the bad news is that AT LEAST 15k of those "photos" are bizarre screenshots, sample pictures, random images, blurry whatevers, even smiling spongebob and kim possible (i have kids).
iphoto seems to have drawn all this from every corner of my hard drive, the back-up copy of my ex-PC Hard Drive (living quietly, i thought, on my external HD), ad nauseam.

How do get the all non-photo "photos" out of the Library?

even if listed by "events" there are about 857--please tell me there is something else I can do besides manually selecting and deleting hundreds of "events"...

Please?

 

[iBookG4user]

Do you have any photos you want to keep on there? If not (or they can easily be placed back on the library) you could hit command + A to select all and then delete them by right clicking and moving them to the trash.

 

[richard.mac]

if you know where all your "real" photos are on hard drive backup start afresh by deleting the iPhoto Library in your Pictures folder while iPhoto is closed and then open iPhoto while holding option and create a new library then drag in your "real" photos.

 

[mojohanna]

If you are running time machine, just restore to the before the point of the unintended keystrokes.

 

[Abstract]

Delete the iPhoto Library (without deleting the original photos from your external HDD), and choose to import photos yourself. Also, I suggest not letting iPhoto control your library. That way, you don't produce a new copy of all these photos on your Mac harddrive. You can say you want to manage your own files/photos, and keep your photos in the folders they're currently in.

 

[147798]

Delete the iPhoto Library (without deleting the original photos from your external HDD), and choose to import photos yourself. Also, I suggest not letting iPhoto control your library. That way, you don't produce a new copy of all these photos on your Mac harddrive. You can say you want to manage your own files/photos, and keep your photos in the folders they're currently in.

BE VERY, VERY CAREFUL IN DOING THIS. If you visit discussion.apple.com and look at the iPhoto support page, something like 70% of all the questions on lost photos originate from folks who don't want to load iphoto pics into the iphoto database. Make sure you understand how iPhoto works before you choose to manage photos yourself in folders.

 

[scottydawg]

bking I am currently not using iPhoto because I am so used to the way I have always done things in Windows and when I first tried iPhoto I found two thing I didn't like... 1) was that it put all the photos in one directory and 2) was that I couldn't share the photos with another account.
Until I read this tread I didn't even know I could use iPhoto and manage my own photos so can you give me a little insight if I do this into the danger of loosing my photos? Thanks!

 

[ChrisA]

Also, I suggest not letting iPhoto control your library.

I would only suggest this if you know a lot about how the Mac works and how iPhoto works. I think it is clear from the question being asked that this person should not be using "refererenced" files. Much simpler and safer to let iPhoto pull in copies. Disk space is only 20 cents per GB.

The more copies of photos the better

The simplist fix here would be to delete the iPhoto library. When iPhoto starts up it will re-create an empty library.

But BEFORE anything else. Step number zero: Make a backup of the photos you want to keep. Burn them the a DVD or copy to an extrnal drive then un-plug the drive and put it some place safe. I would even do this twice, two backups. Now you can mess around again and delete the iphoto library and do the re-import.

It is esy to explain what your did. You imported some photos. iPhoto askes "from where?" and rather then pointing to a folder that contained the photos you pointed to the big folder that contains the entrie disk drive. At that poiint I bet the "un-do" would have worked to un-do the import.

Just remember to keep good backups and toe keep some of the backup copies off-site. If you do this then nothing, not even a house fire can could you to loose your data.

 

[numbersyx]

I would second the time machine solution if you have Leopard and are using the facility