iPhoto: Exclamation mark displayed instead of photos
Do you see exclamation marks in your iPhoto instead of each photo? Then you will find out what this is about in this practical tip.
Exclamation mark instead of photos - possible reasons
An exclamation mark instead of the photo in iPhoto means that the link to the photo is missing. There can be several reasons for this. Remember that the pictures in iPhoto are only a preview (i.e. small copies of the pictures) and the actual pictures are in a different file location.
- Mark the respective photo and choose "File" -> "Show in Finder" -> "Original file". Maybe you just moved the original image. Another possibility is that you deleted something in the sub-folder of iPhoto and iPhoto got confused.
- Did you delete photos in the Finder? You can then still try to get the photos out of the trash and move them to their original location. The exclamation marks should then disappear - and the connection to the respective photo should be established again via iPhoto.
- Perhaps the photos are stored externally, for example on a separate hard drive that is not currently connected. The exclamation mark then indicates that there is no active connection to the storage location of the respective photo.
Another practical tip tells you how to permanently delete photos from the library in iPhoto.