HT204655: Updating from iPhoto to Photos for OS X

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bevsz

Q: Photo Libraries - advice/guidance

I have just the 1 photo library which contains 25,000 photos in albums.  All of these photos are in folder order by the way I put the folders together, ie

 

  • 2016 January Mum's birthday
  • 2016 January trip to London

 

 

The problem I am finding is it's causing photos to be very slow and I get the spinning wheel alot of the time so just have to sit and wait.

 

I was thinking about splitting the library into archives of each year but before I venture into this I have a couple of issues:

 

1. if you have lots of libraries how do you go about making photo books that span over several years?

2. If you want to look at face recognition for a specific person and all the photos are in different libraries how does that work? (I am assuming if you have 20 archive albums you have to look at each library?

 

I make lots of photo books for gifts so I am just concerned if I split everything out into different archive libraries it's going to cause me more work in the long run.

 

Any help or guidance would really be appreciated.

 

Thanks

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)

Posted on May 22, 2016 3:46 AM

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Q: Photo Libraries - advice/guidance

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  • by léonie,Apple recommended

    léonie léonie May 22, 2016 7:47 AM in response to bevsz
    Level 10 (105,761 points)
    iLife
    May 22, 2016 7:47 AM in response to bevsz

    The problem I am finding is it's causing photos to be very slow and I get the spinning wheel alot of the time so just have to sit and wait.

    The size of the library should not cause slowness, so splitting the library will not help; it will just make it impossible to search across libraries, and to access all photos from the media browser.

    My library has 40000 photos and I do not see the spinning wheel at all in Photos.

     

    1. if you have lots of libraries how do you go about making photo books that span over several years?

    2. If you want to look at face recognition for a specific person and all the photos are in different libraries how does that work? (I am assuming if you have 20 archive albums you have to look at each library?

    To create a book or a slideshow, you would have to move all photos you need for this to the same library.  PowerPhotos can help to move photos between libraries, but frankly, I would avoid to have to split the library and find the reason for the slowness.

     

    Typical reasons for Photos being slow could be:

    1. Your system drive might be running out of storage.  Do you have at least 10 GB of free storage on your system drive?
    2. Background processing after importing photos - the rendering of previews and face recognition need a lot of time.  Do you give Photos enough time to complete the background processing after importing photos and videos? Let it run over night to get this done.
    3. The Photos library may have a corruption. Then it would help to repair the library.
    4. Network access.  is your Photos library stored on an NAS? That is not recommended.
    5. Cleaning software.  If you let applications like CleanMyMac remove the auxiliary files from your library, Photos will be slow, because it has to recreate them whenever you launch Photos again.
    6. Photos will be slower than usual. if you are using cloud Photo Library with Optimize storage enabled, because the photos have to be downloaded from iCloud.
    7. If your library contains media that cannot be processed, Photo may get stuck on processing items it cannot process.  Do you have videos or Photos with unusual format in your library?
  • by bevsz,

    bevsz bevsz May 22, 2016 7:48 AM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    May 22, 2016 7:48 AM in response to léonie

    Thanks so much for the very detailed response.  I am not going to split my photos up but will look at some of the points raised in the second section of your message.

     

    have a good day :-)

  • by léonie,

    léonie léonie May 22, 2016 8:01 AM in response to bevsz
    Level 10 (105,761 points)
    iLife
    May 22, 2016 8:01 AM in response to bevsz

    You're welcome

     

    Sometimes it helps to look at the Console window if there are error messages, when you notice if Photos is becoming sluggish.

    You can launch the Console.app from the Utilities subfolder in  Applications .

  • by Old Toad,Helpful

    Old Toad Old Toad May 22, 2016 12:19 PM in response to bevsz
    Level 10 (140,913 points)
    Photos for Mac
    May 22, 2016 12:19 PM in response to bevsz

    Where is your Photos library located?  If on your boot drive how much free space do you have on that drive?

     

    How much RAM do you have installed?

     

    If on an external HD how is that drive formatted and connected to your iMac?  Also how much free space on that drive?

     

    Do you have the iCloud Photo Library enabled? 

     

    Also download and run Etrecheck.  Copy and paste the results into your reply. Etrecheck is a diagnostic tool that was developed by one of the most respected users here (and recommended by Apple Support personnel) in the ASC to provide a snapshot of the system and help identify the more obvious culprits that can adversely affect a Mac's performance.

    OTsig.png

  • by bevsz,

    bevsz bevsz May 22, 2016 12:20 PM in response to bevsz
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    May 22, 2016 12:20 PM in response to bevsz

    Thanks for response.  my photo library is located on hard-drive.

     

    I have 8gig RAM

     

    I do use iCloud photo library

     

    Screen Shot 2016-05-22 at 20.18.36.png

    i'll have a go at downloading etrecheck as recommended.

    thanks