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Just in the last few days, I am getting an error message (will include screenshot) when trying to import or drag and drop a photo I took on my iPhone 13 Pro to my M2 Mac Studio. My Photos Library is stored on an external hard drive with 1.2 available TeraBytes.
Mac Studio (2023)
Linda Cameron wrote: My Photos Library is stored on an external hard drive
The first thing we have to know is, how is your external drive formatted? To avoid damaging the Photos Library an external drive must be formatted in either APFS format or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. Additionally, the drive can not have had Time Machine on it since it was formatted. There have been so many problems with using incompatible drives that the newest macOSs won't even allow a Library on a non-Mac formatted drive to open, since there is a chance of damaging the Photos database. See this:
Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support
Have you checked, if Photos is currently using your library on your external drive?
If Photos has lost the connection to your library on the external drive, it may now be using a new library in your Pictures folder. You can see the location of the currently open Photos Library in the Photos > Settings > General tab, where it says "Library location".
Has your external drive been prepared exactly as described here? Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support
It's amazing what that can do! Sometimes it's a memory problem-- check to see that at least 10% or your internal hard drive is free.
Another neat to trick when things go crazy is a Safe Re-start. This bypasses some processes and can fix some things. You can see more about that here:
Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support
Glad it worked out!
Thanks for the suggestions. The link you sent reminded me that I hadn't tried rebooting my Mac and I did that. Now I am able to import photos again. No idea what was wrong but rebooting fixed it.
Cannot import photos from iPhone to Photos on my Mac
