Library Care

Library Care checks that every original in your library is there and readable, and helps you fix what isn’t, using only exact, verified copies, never “close enough” ones.

Open Library Care at the bottom of the sidebar. Repair queues come first, then every utility, grouped as Organize, Repair, Import, Automate and Connect.

Group	Utilities
Organize	Duplicate review, Large files, Location editor
Repair	Live Photo pairing, and for administrators Missing media and Damaged media
Import	iCloud Photos. See iCloud Photos
Automate	Workflows
Connect	Mobile applications and Obtainium setup

Repair queues

The queues count what’s waiting, with your privacy respected: another account’s Locked items are never counted, and your own only after you unlock.

Queue	What’s in it
Missing originals	Items whose original file can no longer be opened, and how many already have a verified exact copy
Damaged media & RAW	Confirmed damage, suspected damage and RAW files the server can’t read, counted together and reviewed separately
Duplicate groups	Photos that look the same. See Duplicates
Import review	Imported iCloud Photos items that need a decision
Metadata still to read	Items whose details haven’t been read yet

You’ll also find the repair queues in Settings, then Library care, then Repair queues.

Scan again

Scan again checks every item in your library: is the original there, and does it read back intact?

• The scan runs in the background, and you can follow it in Activity and the notifications panel.
• It saves its place after every small batch, so you can pause, resume or cancel it, close the browser or restart the server, and it carries on from where it stopped.
• A scan that fails is retried once automatically before the failure is reported. The scan bar shows the last scan, a running one, or a failure.

Missing originals

1. Select findings and choose Locate originals.
2. Pick where to look: your library storage, your external libraries and, for administrators, the recovery locations set up on the server. Choose Search selected locations. The search runs in the background.
3. Review each candidate. It shows where it was found, whether its checksum is an exact match and whether it opens correctly. If a copy was found in more than one place, choose one and Save candidate choices.
4. Choose Relink verified matches to point each item at its verified copy.

Matches are found by their content checksum, never by file name, thumbnail or video length. A resized, re-encoded or edited copy can’t stand in for a missing original.

Where the copy ends up depends on where it was found. A copy in your library storage, or in the item’s own external library, is linked where it is. A copy in a recovery location is copied into your library storage first; recovery locations are only ever read.

Note

“Missing” doesn’t always mean deleted. The storage may have moved, be offline or have the wrong permissions, or the path may have changed. Check those first.

Damaged originals

Suspected damage and unsupported RAW files are kept for review until a check confirms a problem. Only Confirmed damaged findings can be acted on.

• Recover from a verified copy puts back a copy whose checksum matches the original exactly and that opens correctly. You confirm that you’ve reviewed the evidence. The good copy is placed in a hidden Library Care folder in your library storage, and the damaged file is moved beside it, never over anything, so it’s kept for recovery but never imported again as a new item. A damaged file that another item still uses stays where it is.
• Trash confirmed damage moves damaged items to the trash. You type MOVE CORRUPT MEDIA TO TRASH, enter your PIN if you have one, and the evidence must be from the last day. Each item is checked again as it’s moved, and one that no longer fails is kept.

A RAW file the server can’t read is listed separately. It isn’t damaged; the server just doesn’t support it.

Relinks, recoveries and moves to the trash run in the background with the same pause, cancel and automatic retry as a scan. Each affected row shows a small loader until the job has dealt with it. Every file is read and verified again at the moment of change, and a finding that changed since you reviewed it is reported instead of applied.

To try a relink, recovery or move to the trash again, start it from Library Care rather than from Activity, so its review, confirmation and PIN are checked again.

Space used by recovery

Kept damaged files and recovered copies take disk space, but they don’t count toward your storage quota: an item’s size doesn’t change when it’s recovered. They’re never removed automatically.

Live Photos

An Apple Live Photo is two files, a still photo and a short video. When they’re uploaded or imported separately, for example from a backup, a desktop sync or another service’s export, they can show up as two unrelated items.

Live Photo pairing, under Repair, finds those separated pairs so you can rejoin them in a batch:

• Pairs are matched mainly on the identifier Apple embeds in both files, so confident matches are exact.
• Files whose details were stripped are matched by file name and capture time instead. These are shown as lower-confidence matches for you to review before rejoining.
• Rejoining hides the standalone video and gives you back one playable Live Photo, as if it had been uploaded intact.

The optional extra audio track some Live Photos carry isn’t part of the rejoined pair.

Who sees what

Each person reviews their own findings. Missing media and Damaged media are administrator tools; an administrator can also review one other account, or all accounts.

Another account’s Locked items are never listed, counted or changed, and their thumbnails aren’t shown. Background work, like every server job, can still reach them.

Preservation packages

To keep a verifiable copy of your originals and everything your library knows about them, make a preservation package. See Preservation packages.

For administrators

• Recovery locations are folders Library Care may search for copies, such as a backup drive. Set them with FRAMELEAF_RECOVERY_ROOTS, for example Verified backup=/mnt/backup/photos;/mnt/photos/recovered, and mount them read-only if you can. A candidate must still be a regular file inside its location when it’s recovered; a link that leads outside it is refused.
• Hidden Library Care folders. Kept damaged files, and recovered copies that couldn’t be committed because the item changed at the same moment, stay in .library-care folders in library storage. A leftover copy is reused if the recovery is tried again. Review these folders yourself; they’re never cleaned up automatically.
• Integrity checks run every night at 3 am by default. They look for files on disk the library doesn’t know about, files the library expects that are missing, and files whose checksum has changed. See the results in Settings, then Maintenance, and change the schedule in Settings, then Library care, then Integrity checks.
• An orphan report lists files the library doesn’t know about. It isn’t a list of files to delete, and Library Care never deletes transcodes or XMP sidecars.
• Missing-media, health-scan and orphan counts can differ, because each looks at something different.