Import Large Video Files into Photos

Question

Level 1

4 points

Import Large Video Files into Photos

Hello All,

I just bought a new Mac Mini, and for the most part am having a blast. However, I'm having a strange issue with the Photos application. I had taken a 1 hour video in 4K, the file is about 30GB. I Air Dropped the file from my iPhone to work on a project in iMovie and removed it from my phone. Now I would like to add the video to my Photo's library to be uploaded to iCloud. When I import the file into Photos, the Photos application begins to consume all 8GB of RAM, and then moves on to create a large swap file on the internal SSD (189GB of free space). It slowly builds up to the capacity of the drive, and suddenly closes, as I receive a message that I have run out of application memory, even though the only other app open is Safari.

Any insights on this?

P.S

I tried also to upload this video from my iPhone, but after 2 weeks of consistently trying and never getting anywhere, I had to remove and resync my entire library on my phone to get sync working again.

Mac mini, macOS 10.14

Posted on May 28, 2019 2:02 AM

Reply

Answer 1

léonie

Level 10

201,647 points

May 28, 2019 2:37 AM in response to WolfTail96

When you import a video to Photos, two things will happen, just like for image files you import to Photos:

Photos will scan the video to recognize faves and objects. This needs a lot of processing time and also additional storage.
Photos will create a version of the video to be used preview of the video for sharing with the media browser and a smaller thumbnail video. If the video has a very high resolution, Photos may not be able to handle the conversion of such a large item.

As a test, if the file format is the problem or the size, create a small clip of your video in iMovie, just ten seconds or so, but the same file format as the video you are trying to import to Photos. Can Photos import the shorter video?

Reply

Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

201,647 points

May 28, 2019 3:00 AM in response to WolfTail96

Yes photos is able to import any other video except that one.

Can Photos import any other video with exactly the same video format and codec?

Then the size is the problem. Do still have plenty of free storage on your Mac mini? More than the size of the video you want to import?

I could not find any support document by Apple that gives the supported file types for videos in Photos. But if we want to share a video from Photos to Shared albums, the limit is 15 minutes. So 15 minutes videos are supposed to be supported. You could try, if you can use your video in Photos, if you split it into four parts of 15 minutes each.

If you want to avoid the conversion and face recognition, you could use iCloud Drive to store the video instead of importing it to Photos. iCloud Drive has a file size limit of 50 GB. Drag the video onto iCloud Drive. Then you can use the Files.app on the iPhone to open it.

Reply

Answer 3

WolfTail96 Author

Level 1

4 points

May 28, 2019 3:00 AM in response to léonie

I have other videos on my iCloud photos that are an hour long, from a show I went to a few years ago. I have almost 190GB of free space on the Mac Mini. Theres no faces in this, its a steady shot of the same area, of a machine in operation. As for the file type, other things ive created from iMovie, some up to 30 minutes in MOV have uploaded without this issue.

Reply