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'Photos' Missing from the sidebar within Photos App.

I'm missing the Photos tab that comes under 'Library' section within the photos app, my Macbook Air displays this however my Mac won't. I've gone through the settings however can't find a way to show this tab or turn it on.


Any pointers?

Mac mini, macOS 10.15

Posted on Nov 23, 2019 11:51 AM

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10 replies

Nov 23, 2019 11:57 AM in response to mtmcgavock

As a test launch Photos with the Option key held down and create a new, test library.  Import some photos and test to see if the same problem persists. Does it? (This tells us if the problem is limited to your current library or is more wide spread)


Next log into another user account and see if the problem persists there in Photos. (This tells us if the problem is limited to your user account or is system wide).


Lastly, boot into Safe Mode (Use Safe Mode to isolate issues with your Mac) and try there. Reboot normally and test again.

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


Nov 24, 2019 11:28 AM in response to Old Toad

It was pretty much full, anyway i've moved some stuff, created a new account and Photos is still the same. See attached screenshot.


Also i've now turned iCloud Library on, my photo library was 81GB, and now it's shot up to 117GB since turning this on. Why is this? as it's meant to be uploading not downloading - The iCloud Library was empty.

Nov 24, 2019 5:58 AM in response to Old Toad

Thanks, switching photo library's (Creating a new one etc) doesn't make a difference, photos are still not shown in the sidebar. Safe Mode doesn't make any difference, I cannot try a new user account as I don't have one and unfortunately don't have enough room on my disk to create one.


Looks possibly an issue with the Photo app? I'm up to date on all software, however i'm unsure if you can remove and re-download the Photo app or is it part of the OS.

Jan 30, 2020 6:44 PM in response to mtmcgavock

Some people have claimed that the upgrade to Catalina messed up some of the plists. The plist for Photos is apparently in /Users/bradleyross/Library/Containers/com.apple.Photos/Data/Library/Preferences and the name of the plist is com.apple.Photos.plist (Display with plutil -p com.apple.Photos.plist ). However, I don't have your problem and don't know what to look for. Always make copies of plists before doing any editing, and it's probably best not changing anything.


Can you click on All Photos in the View Menu? If so, what appears? This should give you the same display that you would get from the Photos button.


If you do things like reboot or use Safe Mode, make sure that you close all applications, especially Photos, before shutting down the computer.

'Photos' Missing from the sidebar within Photos App.

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