Restoring my 2012 iMac

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Level 1

8 points

Restoring my 2012 iMac

I haven’t used my iMac in quite some time and when I went to log in, many of my applications cannot be used. My office programs (Excel, word) and my photos app (iPhoto) all have an X on it and I can’t open any of them.

I have a Late 2012 iMac. Currently has MacOS Catalina 10.15.7 on there. Its running slow.

I just would like to get my photos off of there (wherever they are now) and then I can scrap the computer if needed

anything I can do? I don’t Time Machine goes back far enough

iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Nov 4, 2024 6:04 PM

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Answer 1

steve626

Level 6

11,309 points

Nov 4, 2024 8:37 PM in response to lissaq10

lissaq10 wrote:

I don’t Time Machine goes back far enough

Can you explain what was meant in that sentence? It makes no sense.

I would copy the files you want to save to an external drive asap. Usually image files are in the Pictures folder. If there are only Photos Libraries or iPhoto Libraries there, right click them, select Show package contents, and look for a large folder called "Originals" or "Masters." That folder contains the actual image files. You can copy that entire folder to an external drive. If you have iCloud storage space or Dropbox, you can make a copy of that folder and put that copy into cloud storage.

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