Comments on Pigs, Gourds, and Wikis: Time Machine doesn't back up iPhoto

Indeed, this Apple is full of worms. Yet another o...

2011-02-19T10:41:08.958-05:00

Indeed, this Apple is full of worms. Yet another over-hyped shit-box from Apple. I have lost several very important iPhoto projects to TM. Yes, they should have been printed through a real print source, but, that's not the point. The point is, TM breeds a wildly false sense of security. Run, don't walk from this Pinto (for you young'ns, that's a car reference, look it up) of Apple i-programs.

This happened to me yesterday. Then I tried to dra...

2010-10-13T18:23:35.734-04:00

This happened to me yesterday. Then I tried to drag them to the hd but it was taken too long. Also all the that got backed up earlier was put in the trash automatically. I've been emptying the trash for almost 24 hours and still haven't finished.

See this post here: http://forums.macrumors.com/s...

2010-09-18T03:19:16.582-04:00

See this post here:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=449962

I found that I could not see the original files on my TM disk but if I open iPhoto then enter TM i can see all my photos

Thanks for the post. At least now I know that I sh...

2010-07-27T10:07:04.759-04:00

Thanks for the post.
At least now I know that I should use GUID Partition Table for my MacBook, because it's with Intel processor.

This also has been happening to me, but I didn'...

2010-06-29T22:00:39.491-04:00

This also has been happening to me, but I didn't realize it until my hard drive failed and I lost a few months of pictures. Why isn't Apple doing something about this bug!

I took the computer and the drive to the Apple Gen...

2010-06-10T21:53:43.938-04:00

I took the computer and the drive to the Apple Genius bar and the guy checked. He too concluded that on my computer it was reporting a size of 25 gb and on the external drive 16 gb. I did copy when closed - i'm pretty sure - this happens even when time machine does the backup. i just spoke to the apple support specialist at best buy and he too is puzzled. I will post to apple iphoto support site now i didnt realize it existed, thanks

Honestly, I don't know where the other 10gb is...

2010-06-10T05:43:14.623-04:00

Honestly, I don't know where the other 10gb is. How do you know it really should be 25gb? Do you copy it when it's closed? Have you posted on the Apple iPhoto support site?

Now I am worried - i need to clear up space on my ...

2010-06-10T00:57:43.102-04:00

Now I am worried - i need to clear up space on my hard drive badly. But i have about 25 gb iphoto library and both used time machine and dragged and dropped (which took hours) for good measure. In both cases the iphoto library on the external drive says its size is only 16gb. What accounts for the nearly 10gb that is missing from the copy of my library? Apple Genius bar guy doesn't know. But he told me it "should be okay" to erase the library on my hard drive. Now I'm afraid to. Can anyone figure out why my copy of the library turns out to be so much smaller than the original? My hard drive is really full so i have to put these photos somewhere but really don't want to loose them.

It has happened to me too, I´ve lost some recent e...

2010-06-01T14:11:19.577-04:00

It has happened to me too, I´ve lost some recent events (I don´t know about the older ones) and still can´t manage to back them up!!!

THIS IS NOT FEAR!!!

Let us know if you have a reliable answer from apple. If that it´s not the case we should do something about it...

@Jonathan. I'm so sorry. That's why I'...

2010-04-25T16:04:59.089-04:00

@Jonathan. I'm so sorry. That's why I've been trying to publicize this very real problem.

Ihave just lost all my photos after thinking that ...

2010-04-25T14:22:55.739-04:00

Ihave just lost all my photos after thinking that time machine had backed it up, i'm not happy

Same thing here, just lost some birthday pictures ...

2010-04-03T17:52:34.329-04:00

Same thing here, just lost some birthday pictures (from February). I trusted the Timemachine software (with the Timecapsule) would at least backed it up once. It did not! How will the tweak work that you exactly can see what is on the drive when you have a Timecapsule which does not run SMB / NFS protocol (with other words is not accessible as network drive so no exploring here). Only the Timemachine interface can give some information which is not very clarifying in my opinion. 9 out of 10 times it is Iphoto that is active, so it is a real disturbing bug.

Hi Liz, I've been having this problem, too, s...

2010-02-02T19:15:00.473-05:00

Hi Liz,

I've been having this problem, too, so it's been great to run across this blog and feel like I'm not alone. In my case, iPhoto may have been open when Time Machine first ran back-ups against my recent photos, but it hasn't been open for the last several back-ups, and the recent photos *still* aren't getting backed up. I'm not sure what to do...as an interim measure I'll have to do some kind of manual back-up as you did.

I've also talked with Apple reps, and the two I talked to had never heard of this problem and were a little skeptical, sigh. You'd think that even if Apple didn't want to advertise the problem, they'd AT LEAST make sure their support staff was aware of it. Anyway, thanks for helping spread the word.

Oh no! That's horrible. And so not right. I fe...

2010-01-05T22:23:23.497-05:00

Oh no! That's horrible. And so not right. I feel terrible for you. Spread the word: TimeMachine does not back up open files, including the iPhoto library.

Hi, I just had the same issue and lost photos sinc...

2010-01-05T18:20:40.945-05:00

Hi, I just had the same issue and lost photos since may of last year. I had a similar issue with the GUID scheme which required me to wipe the disk in order to update to 10.6. After the restore I was missing the photos. Apple was unable to help, and simply gave me the number for a data recovery service. Right now, I am trying to recover the data myself.

It's quite sad to hear that the Apple represen...

2009-06-23T19:22:41.607-04:00

It's quite sad to hear that the Apple representative says things that aren't really true. I'm quite sure it souldn't matter at all that you use a drive formated as ”Apple Partition” for Time Machine on an Intel Mac — it's only when it comes to using it as a startup disk that this is important.

Today's MacInTouch reader report at http://www.mac...

2009-04-30T18:11:00.000-04:00

Today's MacInTouch reader report at http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/leopard/index.html#d30apr2009 makes it clear that Time Machine does not back up the iPhoto library if iPhoto is running.

Apart from Time Machine backing up my iPhoto Libra...

2009-04-30T06:41:00.000-04:00

Apart from Time Machine backing up my iPhoto Library in its entirety after installing iPhoto'09 (and recently doing it all again after I fiddled about inside the library), I just noticed that my latest Time Machine Backup does NOT include my latest photos added. It insists that the iPhoto Library was last modified two days ago, and a forced backup does not add my latest event to it.

Maybe it will decide to do it later.

Random, indeed.

Has Apple talked to you yet? I had the same proble...

2009-04-24T23:20:00.000-04:00

Has Apple talked to you yet? I had the same problem, but I was unlucky enough to loose all my photos, because I thought they were correctly backed up. I would really like to know what Apple says about this...

@Anonymous :) Knock on wood, but I wouldn't worry ...

2009-04-13T19:56:00.000-04:00

@Anonymous :) Knock on wood, but I wouldn't worry about the lambs too much. They're with their big, doting mothers, who would be no match for a little fox. Coyotes, now they're another question altogether. But I'm pretty sure the fox had its sights set on the chickens... Just the same, I'll close them in carefully for the night!

What's really scary are the photosvof the baby ani...

2009-04-13T19:10:00.000-04:00

What's really scary are the photosvof the baby animals and the fox