Improve performance of Photos for Mac

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Level 4

2,545 points

Improve performance of Photos for Mac

Did a few Google searches but couldn't find anything helpful. I have a question about improving the performance of the Photos for Mac app. Now granted my Photos library (mid-2015 iMac running latest Mojave and Photos versions) is a bit on the large size (over 85,000 photos/videos and a bit under 700GB) and is on an external Western Digital USB 3.0 drive. All the photos - should be obvious by the size of the library - are in the library itself (having the app set for downloading all originals). But at times it seems to drag - Auto Enhancing a photo, swiping back and forth between photos - and I get the pretty little pinwheels. Not overly long - usually less than 20-30 seconds or so.

My question is would the app run better if:

(1) I had it Optimized for Storage - which means everything would be stored in iCloud and only downloaded when I want to view a larger photo and/or edit.

(2) And, if I did change to the Optimized version, would moving the library to my internal HD on the iMac make a difference? (Not reasonable now considering the size of the library.)

Thanks for any ideas/suggestions.

(BTW - I have considered dividing up the large library into two smaller ones, but would prefer not to go that route as the slow-downs are not really annoying at this point.)

iMac 21.5", macOS 10.14

Posted on May 5, 2019 12:35 PM

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Answer 1

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léonie

Level 10

194,923 points

May 6, 2019 6:34 AM in response to swandy

The library size does not make a difference. I do not notice any performance difference between my main Photos Library with 50000 photos and a small test library with just 10 photos.

if you use "Optimize Storage", Photos will probably be slower, because you need to download the photos from iCloud, before you can use them.

Photos can be a bit slow, if your system drive is full. Or if you do not have much built-in memory. How much free storage is on your system drive? How much memory has your iMac? What does the Activity show? Is your Mac using much memory, when Photos is running?

On my MacBook Pro I notice that Photos will show the colorful pinwheel, if I create too may smart albums. I have to keep the number of smart albums well below hundred or so.

As to your western Digital drive - is it correctly formatted as MacOS Extended (Journaled)? Is any WD software installed on the drive, that could be interfering?

Did you recently install any third-party software at all, that could have added incompatible system extensions?

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Answer 2

swandy Author

Level 4

2,545 points

May 6, 2019 8:44 AM in response to léonie

Thanks Leonie. The idea of testing a smaller library came up in another forum, but from your view it appears that might be the wrong direction. (Though I might try it anyway first on the external HD and then move it to the internal one. Though I will not make it the System Library in either case.)

The computer is a mid-2015 iMac with 16GB of RAM. The internal HD has 815GB out of 1TB free. The WD external has almost 2TB free out of 3TB, so I don't think either of those are the issue. It has been suggested to replace the USB3 WD with an SSD drive - it would make sense that that should help. Another suggestion - since I did mention that I was planning to upgrade the iMac and give this one to my wife to replace her older one - was to have an SSD drive installed and keep the library there instead. But to get an SSD internal that is large enough I would either have to pay Apple and additional $700 on the new iMac or purchase one after market and figure out how to get it installed after the fact (though I am not really in love with that idea).

Thanks for your suggestions

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Answer 3

léonie

Level 10

194,923 points

May 6, 2019 9:04 AM in response to swandy

My Mac has an internal 1TB SSD, and Photos is very responsive with the library on this drive.

I am keeping backup copies and an archive of more photos on an external Lacie drive. Photos is slightly slower on the external drive; the external drive is formatted APFS and plugged into the USB 3 port.

Are your image files large RAW files or scans? My RAW files are not larger than 16MB.

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Improve performance of Photos for Mac

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