Background and Screensaver Settings Not Showing Photo Albums Properly

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Level 1

16 points

Background and Screensaver Settings Not Showing Photo Albums Properly

I have been using an album I specifically made to house photos I'd like rotating for my desktop image for years, since the most recent IOS update (Catalina I believe), the Desktop and Screensaver menu has been acting odd in a couple ways, one not so vital, and one that is my main issue.

1) Below you can see that the options for photo appearance in the drop-down menu are all stacked on each other despite having made a selection.

2) As you can see, the selected album "Background Photos" (consists of 200+ photos) even after waiting ample time for loading, doesn't show any photos available for circulation (although sometimes only one random photo from the album appears). This is the same with any of the other albums on that list, even those with far far fewer photos in it. How can I get my photos back for my desktop?

MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.15

Posted on Jan 17, 2020 5:17 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

mmerino665 Author

Level 1

16 points

Jan 19, 2020 7:37 AM in response to dialabrain

I'm actually realizing now that if I go into the folder on my photos app, by selecting each photo individually and letting the photo load (indicated by a small loading pie on the bottom right) it then appears in the desktop photo settings. Very odd that this would be the reason, but it seems to be working at the moment.

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Answer 2

mmerino665 Author

Level 1

16 points

Jan 19, 2020 7:07 AM in response to dialabrain

I'm not quite certain what you are referring to here. Any way you can explain the how-to of this method, and what it is this does? That way I'm not just plugging in solutions without knowing why it might help me and what it could be doing to my things.

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Answer 3

dialabrain

Level 10

122,609 points

Jan 19, 2020 7:18 AM in response to mmerino665

I can try. plists are preference lists which have settings for apps, processes etc. On occasion they can become corrupt. It's just one possibility. Removing the screensaver plist, if it is corrupt, may help. Your Mac will create a new non-corrupt plist. If you are worried, you can just move the plist to the Trash, open System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver > Screen Saver and test. if it doesn't help, you can always right/control click on the plist in the Trash and choose "Put Back".

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Answer 4

dialabrain

Level 10

122,609 points

Jan 19, 2020 7:41 AM in response to mmerino665

It sounds like some of your Photos were not downloaded from iCloud. Sounds like you're on your way to fix it. Good work.

At times it is difficult to diagnose a problem when there can be multiple reasons causing them.

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Answer 5

dialabrain

Level 10

122,609 points

Jan 19, 2020 7:35 AM in response to mmerino665

Most likely there is a reason. :)

Try booting into Safe Mode then boot normally. That cleans out various caches.

Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 6

dialabrain

Level 10

122,609 points

Jan 17, 2020 5:21 AM in response to mmerino665

Have you tried restarting your Mac?

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Answer 7

mmerino665 Author

Level 1

16 points

Jan 17, 2020 7:34 AM in response to dialabrain

Thanks for the reply! While I share in your enthusiasm for this step as a solution, I have tried this and it didn't work!

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Answer 8

dialabrain

Level 10

122,609 points

Jan 17, 2020 7:40 AM in response to mmerino665

You're welcome. You could try deleting…

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.screensaver.plist

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Answer 9

mmerino665 Author

Level 1

16 points

Jan 19, 2020 7:32 AM in response to dialabrain

So after deleting that plist, I can now see 6 photos appear where there were 0 before, but this still leaves 200+ photos (all with the correct format) out of this list. Any reason for this?

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