Comments on: Rebuilding thumbnails cache in iPhoto

By: kaan

kaan — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 10:10:02 +0000

hey guys. both way didnt work for my iphoto.
i fixed it from different way.

1.turn iphoto off.
2.press option button and run iphoto again.
3.give a different name and create new library.
4.try import your photos again. u ll see thumbnails.

By: rascalina

rascalina — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 14:27:01 +0000

Thank you this worked for me last night. Took forever but it worked. I have iPhoto 11 also.

By: ف wildchild ۞

ف wildchild ۞ — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 07:58:38 +0000

Thanks asciimo.. It really work!!

By: asciimo

asciimo — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 09:56:44 +0000

If none of the usual cmd+apple key tricks or the rebuild help you, it may be that you moved your iphoto library using the wrong tool (like me).

I lost all Thumbnails and rebuilding did nothing, after some fruitless search, I found that the thumbnails are actually stored in the Data.noindex folder in the application package. The Album.xml will address a /Data/ folder for the thumbnails. I had only a FILE called “Data”. Comparing with the original library, I found that Data was supposed to be a softlink pointing to Data.noindex.

So: If rebuilding and repairing won’t work for you, check if you have the link set correctly. If not, you open a Terminal and cd to the library bundle folder:

> cd /Volumes/nasfolder/iphonelibrary/

now make sure it is not a link:

Correct entry:

$ ls -l Data
lrwxrwxrwx@ 1 asciimo staff 12 13 Jan 10:42 Data -> Data.noindex

Broken entry:
-rw-rw-rw- 1 asciimo staff 14 29 Dez 01:26 Data

To fix it, remove the broken entry (iPhoto must be closed!!!)
$ rm Data

Now recreate the link
$ ln -s Data.noindex Data

check with the ls -l command above if the file is now correct.

Restart iPhoto, now your Thumbnails will be back.

By: Professor Twahn

Professor Twahn — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 23:27:39 +0000

works for iphoto 11 as well.

By: Kent Richards

Kent Richards — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 06:39:37 +0000

Good stuff. Thanks!

By: Huy T Phan

Huy T Phan — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 08:12:43 +0000

I used to wait for iPhoto to prompt before I could rebuild. I never thought I could activate it myself.
Thanks for the info. I really appreciate it.

By: Jean

Jean — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 22:23:00 +0000

Thank you, your info was invaluable. I’ve been waiting for 3 weeks for iphoto to ask me to rebuild, so your quick tip was excellent.

By: Mariano

Mariano — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:41:02 +0000

Thanks for posting this!!! I have the same problem with iPhoto 7.5 and worked GREAT! =D

By: Mayank

Mayank — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 01:44:31 +0000

Thanks….I have been trying to figure this out for quite some time…..btw for iPhoto 6 shift-command-option works….but I had to rebuild the entire photo cache instead of the small thumbnails…..and the operation is really memory consuming…..