Cannot delete +2000 photos on MacBook Pro - freeze

Question

Level 1

24 points

Cannot delete +2000 photos on MacBook Pro - freeze

Hi All,

I have a brand new MacBook Pro 13 working fine. I have created an album for duplicate photos and I want to delete them now. As you will see in the screenshot below, it gets stuck every time I try delete 1 or 10 or all photos of any album. I waited for more than 24 hours thinking it was a long background task but stayed the same ... same issue is happening on my photos app on my iPhone if I try to delete one or all photos. iCloud general issue ?

Is it a general issue with Catalina or just me? Any help, if possible, would be amazing please!

Thanks

Jeremie

MacBook Pro 13”, macOS 10.15

Posted on Nov 18, 2019 8:32 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

Old Toad

Level 10

208,463 points

Nov 18, 2019 10:39 AM in response to jeremie2344

jeremie2344 wrote:

Thanks I run on Catalina 10.15.1 and Photos Version 5.0 (111.16.180)

Will try safe mode - I have CleanMyMac X installed, could that be an issue?

Absolutely! It's one of the worst apps you could have installed and run. It's considered akin to malware by most around here. Uninstall it according to the developer's instructions - How to Uninstall CleanMyMac X - MacPaw

Once you uninstall it reboot and try deleting again. If it fails you might have to reinstall the system because CMM has been known to trash some required system files. That can be accomplished with this updater: macOS Catalina 10.15.1 Update

Reply

Answer 2

Old Toad

Level 10

208,463 points

Nov 18, 2019 10:24 AM in response to jeremie2344

What system and Photos versions are you running?

1 - Boot into Safe Mode (Use Safe Mode to isoloate issues with your Mac) and try deleting from there. Then reboot normally.

NOTE: Safe Mode boot can take up to 10 minutes as it's doing some system cache cleaning, volume verifying and directory repairing.

2 - Launch Photos with the Option+Command keys held down and run First Aid on the library. Then try to delete some photos.

Have you run any "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up" or antivirus apps on your Mac?

Reply

Answer 3

Old Toad

Level 10

208,463 points

Nov 18, 2019 3:00 PM in response to jeremie2344

You don't need any cleaning or antivirus apps on a Mac. This user tip describes how to protect your Mac: Effective defenses against malware and other threats - Apple Community.