Hello!
I have a large difference in size of photos library between Finder (364Gb) and "About This Mac Storage Manage" (168Gb) according to the printscreen.
I have a suspicion that when I updated to Catalina the photos library almost doble in size.
Any help is appreciated
Thank you very much
BMSPS
MacBook Pro
iCloud has just finished to download all the files
My Library size is 200 Gb which is very nice
The folder structure is normal (no "Masters" folder anymore)
So, rebuilding the library by uploading it to iCloud Photos and download the library to a new empty library solved my problem.
Thank you very much!
To find out, how large your Photos Library really is, select it in the Finder and ctrl-click it. Use the command "Show Package Contents". It will show you the folders inside the library. Is the total of the sizes of the internal folders the same as shown for the library package in the Finder?
on your Mac is open, choose Photos > Quit Photos.see System Photo Library overview.
on your Mac, choose Photos > Preferences, then click General.Lurkums, thanks in advance for trying to help.
I used the terminal command " Terminal is diskutil list" and the results are similar to yours with different volume sizes
The disk utility also shows a result like yours
I did not rebuild the Spotlight because I don't have any kind of problems with spotlight, also didn't quite understand how it would help in my situation
Regarding your last statement "You need to decide if this is 'real' used space or 'fake' used space before taking action" is where I need help:
1 - Need to verify if there is duplicate or fake space
2 - in case it is fake, how to delete it?
One more thing that I remember:
I have all my documents (photos included) in dropbox
After updating to OSx Catalina dropbox begun synchronising all the folders (photos library included) and I ran out of space
That's why I suspect of something.
The problem is I don't wanna mess with the library. I do not want do lose photos
Thank you
My computer and dropbox organised the following way:
please let me know if there is anything more you need to know
Thanks for helping
I'm going to duck out of this. We need someone with more skill than I have. Thank you for the extra clarity.
If someone does not drop by soon may I suggest you phrase it as a new question with the full clarity you have just expanded upon?
Hello Léonie
Thanks for helping and for the advice
I have already moved the photos library out of dropbox and everything is working fine :-)
Made also a backup to an external hard drive
I have Catalina macOS 10.15.1
I will upgrade, maybe something changes
The size of the contents equals to the total size of the photos Library - 363,56 Gb
I found something strange, I have a MASTERS folder and a ORIGINAL folder whose size is very similar.
A also found that updating to CATALINA places all photos in the ORIGINAL folder instead of the MASTERS.
Could this be the solution to my problem?
When I updated to CATALINA the Photo Library was synchronising to dropbox so maybe the folder MASTERS was kept and also created the ORIGINALS doubling the space taken by the Library.
I know I should not delete any folder from the Photo Library folder, but is there any way to verify or repair this?
It looks like Dropbox has damaged the library.
On Catalina you should no longer have a folder "Masters", only "Originals". Have you already tried to repair the library with the first aid tools, as described here? Repair your library in Photos on Mac - Apple Support
Make a backup copy of the library on an external volume, before you try this.
If Repairing does not fix it, you could try to rebuild the library by uploading it to iCloud Photos. Then download the library to a new, empty library. This will recreate a complete new library. But you will need paid cloud storage for at least a month.
Made a copy and tried to repair library as described but did not result
Afterwards I paid for a month of cloud photos and just finished uploading all the photos to iCloud. Can someone inform how to download the photos to an empty new library?
Thank you very much, Lurkums
I will wait a while for some other feedback here.
Any help is apreciated.
I have just upgraded to macOS 10.15.2
everything the same
Any ideas?
Thank you
Photos is intended to be a welded shut box. Strong advice is to leave the contents alone
I suspect this is linked to your, mine and most other people's imperfect understanding yet of APFS and the structures it creates on disk. Google produces a list of many articles all purporting to understand the topic, very few of which are official Apple documents. I am assuming your drive that has your Photos library is APFS. APFS is not presented to the end user very well in terms of disk utilisation. That is an understatement.
There are three approaches after educating yourself in as many of these documents as you can cope with:
If we choose option 3, a useful command to issue in Terminal is diskutil list
This ought to produce an output like:
This is a normal output and should reassure you [my machine has one internal SSD]
I expect your Disk Utility to show something like this:
To see the containers I have used the drop down in the top left hand corner
If all appears normal to you you can then decide to go further if you wish. Read How to rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support and decide if there is any point. Every write to an SSD 'harms' it and decreases its life
You need to decide if this is 'real' used space or 'fake' used space before taking action
If it is fake then APFS is intended to take care of it and we are intended to ignore it. I say intended because i have insufficient experience of it yet.
Reindexing with Spotlight will remove any fake space (0.9 probability)
I will need someone else to comment about dropbox and your use of it.That is outside my experience completely. WHatI Think you have said you are doing is holding 100% of all your files and photos in Dropbox? This means that, apart form the Operating System and Software you have no user files on your Mac?
Please reply with absolute clarity. I am wondering whether Photos may be importing onto your Mac's Dave items that you wish to keep in Dropbox. I also have no idea if a Photos library may be in Dropbox (If that is what you are attempting)
Different photo library sizes in finder vs storage manage
