PHOTOS - deleted and need recovering

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Level 1

27 points

PHOTOS - deleted and need recovering

I need some help. I have over 45,000 photos on my iMac. Every month I download them unto an external hard drive, just in case. Yesterday, I went through my photos, on my computer, and decided to delete some of the folders that I haven't used for awhile, thinking that the pictures were on my external hard drive, and I can just pull the folders out and put in another folder. So, I plugged in my external hard drive and all of a sudden it began to copy the photos from my computer. It never automatically did that before, or at least I never noticed, I always had to move my PHOTO file from computer to external hard drive. Lo and behold all the missing files are not on my external hard drive anymore. SO, I went to my trash since I had quite a few PHOTO ALIAS apps out there from previous monthly downloads. Found my most recent one from 12-6-2025, thinking everything should be on there when I downloaded it. Made a folder on external hard drive and moved the folder over and when I opened it, it didn't have the photos and had my recent photos. What gives? I would think the Trash Folders would be what it was when I trashed it. I do not have my computer folders on I-cloud, don't know if that would have helped or not. Please let me know, what options I have to recover the folders that I can't find. Of course, they aren't in most recent deletions either. Thanks.

iMac 27″, macOS 15.7

Posted on Dec 19, 2025 6:22 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 19, 2025 6:47 AM in response to majorcin

I'm not sure I understand-- it sounds like you are not talking about "folders" in the Photos app, is that right? But rather, these are folders in Finder? And I'm not sure what a PHOTO file is.

If something like that happened to me, I think that I would try using an app like Find Any File ($6) to hunt for image files and see if any were someplace I hadn't looked. I'm afraid that if the files aren't there, then they just aren't there. If your hard drive is mechanical, then it's conceivable that the data can be recovered (at rather great cost, I think,) as deletions may affect the catalog with wiping the disk. If you plan on doing that, then you should not be saving anything else on the disk. A solid state drive behaves differently, and there's not much to recover.

It sounds like you were very careful in backing up your pictures. I have not heard of an event like yours. I use Time Machine as a backup, and I alternate two separate TM drives, one mechanical and the other solid state, in case one goes bad.

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Answer 2

majorcin Author

Level 1

27 points

Dec 19, 2025 7:41 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

Within in my PHOTO app...I put all my pictures into named folders and date the folder...so if I am looking for my South Dakota trip....I just open that folder up...maybe folder isn't the correct term...but just wanted to explain myself a little more. Fortunately, I have save a lot of my SD cards...so I should be able to retrieve most of my stuff. Just thought I would throw this out there in case someone had an easier explanation. Thanks.

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Answer 3

Dec 19, 2025 7:56 AM in response to majorcin

So, you mean Albums in the Photos app. That's clearer. In Photos, Albums can be in Folders. So terminology can get confusing.

For more clarification, what do you mean by "I download them unto an external hard drive?" There's no "download" operation in Photos. Do you use

File>Export>Export nn Photos, or do you use

File>Export>Export Unmodified Originals,

or do you use both? Or do you copy the entire Photos Library from the Pictures folder to your external drive?

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Answer 4

majorcin Author

Level 1

27 points

Dec 19, 2025 10:37 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

Copy the entire photo album to the external drive. When I plug in my external drive, I just pull the current PHOTO file from my computer hard drive over to the External drive....that is why I get Alias so many times, then throw into the old one in the trash....

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Answer 5

Dec 19, 2025 11:53 AM in response to majorcin

I'm not sure what you mean by PHOTO file. Do you mean the Photos Library package, which is normally named "Photos Library.photoslibrary?"

The "Photos" app does not have any pictures in it. "Photos" has the instructions for organizing and editing the pictures.

An "Alias" is a pointer to a file-- it isn't an actual file. Here is an example of Photos and an Alias of Photos:

The Alias has only a few hundred bytes-- it doesn't have any more information than just how to find the real Photos file.

I fear that you may not have been copying your actual pictures. Is that possible?

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Answer 6

majorcin Author

Level 1

27 points

Dec 19, 2025 1:14 PM in response to Richard.Taylor

OK attached are my APPS....see the PHOTO app in second row? When I put my SD into computer and click on pictures to go into this app. From there I make a folder and put my pictures in them....anytime I click on the PHOTO app...all my pictures are listed as the latest taken....then if I want to see something I took last year, I just click on that folder...maybe saying folder is confusing you, but everything I ever put on my computer as photos are in this app. I will just work on the SD cards I saved and pull the pictures that I really wanted to save.

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