Nope. Trash is obsessively emptied all the time. These are images that shouldn't even be there. Random screenshots. Images that I set as wallpapers and deleted. Copies of others with weird dates that don't match the date the photo was taken at all.
And yes, it's Command+Option. I am rebuilding right now. Hopefully it fixes this stuff. Doesn't look like it did though. Still finding photos in the Masters that aren't in the Library anywhere.
Sometimes I think I might as well just stop using iPhoto and manage my photos myself. Does OS X allow you to still use a Photo Stream on the computer if you don't have iPhoto? Like maybe use a folder and save images there instead? I mean iTunes will let me just use a folder for syncing to my phone. Surely it could also save stream photos to a folder. Surely? Surely?
I mean iPhoto has always had a love hate relationship. I hate that its Fullscreen mode is so incorrect. When the Lion Fullscreen mode came along, all other apps simply put themselves in full screen with the same UI. But iPhoto's original fullscreen mode was supposed to be a sort of "clean simplified interface". So when Lion came along they decided to keep that instead. I don't want that stupid interface. I'd rather have normal iPhoto UI in my Fullscreen. Bah. I'm this close to just diving into my Masters, organizing the photos myself and dumping iPhoto all together. Especially after how terrible iMovie became. I can't even use that anymore. I'm so OCD I'd much rather have full control over my photos. I just don't know if there'd be any drawbacks to dumping it. I'd have to switch to using Image Capture to import actual photos. I'd also kind of miss Places and Faces. But not so much. I also used to use FaceBook Uploading but gave that up as times changed. If I uninstall iPhoto will it delete those photos? Hopefully not.
The worst part is how many empty folders it leaves behind.
Yeah, I hear you.
I've used iPhoto since I first got a mac, around 2005. I've upgraded my library again and again as they introduced new versions, so I'm SURE I've got all sorts of legacy junk. I then transitioned to Aperture and did a library conversion (Aperture 2 probably), and I still have keywords show up as XXXX (iPhoto), and YYY (iPhoto modified) etc.
I used to be obsessively "clean" such as yourself, but after a while, so long as I have excessive HD space (and I have been able to keep ahead with it all by upgrading drives as newer capacities become available), I've learnt to leave it well alone.
Like you say, I've detached links from iPhoto to, say, FlickR before and it just simply delete all the photos from that FLickR. That was years ago when it was first introduced, but it's scared me well away from having those kinds of links. I DO use FaceBook linked to Aperture, and I have rebuilt libraries and had them reappear, but generally, you never really know what's going to happen between different software vendors utilising other party APIs and such.
It's generally why I prefer to just stick with Apple, who generally have an end-to-end solution without involving anyone else for a lot of things. Like I would suggest if you were to move away from iPhoto, then do it fully, and break from photostream as well, at least for PC-related streaming.
Anyway, are you sure there are photos in the "package" that aren't in the library? I forget how iPhoto organises these days, but with Aperture, it is generally pretty good at finding orphaned photos (as evidenced above, a little TOO good).
what options show when you hold opt+cmd? Aperture has Repair permissions, Repair Database, and rebuild Library. I used to rebuild fairly often, until realtively recently when I had a catastrophic failure because my Faces database was, well, I don't think corrupt, but a real hog, slowing my machine down entirely (it has been like that since I've moved from a particular version of Aperture. IT crashed on me and deleted all face data, and I had toe restore 500GB from Time Machine. After that I decided to just leave it alone.
(I also noted that after a rebuild, my library would increase by like 5GB - basically it recreated a database but KEPT the old database in some deprecated form somewhere).
iPhoto and APerture, and Apple software in general has always been unafraid to just bloat up the databases for whatever reason with no way to clear things out easily.
Look at how the iPod Cache works, for instance. When syncing an album or selection of photos from your computer to view on your iOS device, it creates an iPodCache folder holding all the thumbs and whatever data. But if you stop syncing that album, does it delete that cache? nope. It keeps it around in case you want to sync it again later, or maybe you have another device that syncs it.
It MIGHT delete it these days, but back in the day it just left stuff lying around.
I spend too much time stressing about stuff like this, so I've kind of learnt, for the most part, just to leave things be. I'm so obsessive about this sort of thing, sometimes the less I know about it the better.
. I've already pulled everything out of iPhoto into folders sorted by year. Just something I've been needing to do for a decade anyway.