Photos 5.0 is constantly crashing on Catalina 10.15.2 on my Mac Book Pro. What to do?

Is Photos actually crashing and creating a crash report, or is it just busy and unresponsive? If Photos is creating a crash log or you are seeing a error message, please post this message, so we can what the reason is.

• How long ago has the update to Catalina been? Did you just upgrade?
• How much free storage is on your system volume? Try to keep at least 20GB free (really free, not just "available") during the initial scanning of the library.
• Is your Photos Library on an external volume or in your Pictures folder?
• Could it be that you are having older videos or image files in your Photos Library? Photos 5.0 on Catalina can no longer process all codecs, that could have been used without problems in Photo 4 or older versions.
• Are you using iCloud Photos?

You can check, if your Photos Library has a problem, by creating a new Photos Library and importing a few photos and videos. Is Photos running well, without hanging, on a new Photos Library? See: Create additional photo libraries in Photos on Mac - Apple Support

You can also check, if you have incompatible software installed, that is causing problems for Photos, by restoring your Mac in Safe Mode: Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac - Apple Support

Aidebi wrote:

Léonie,

...

I've upgraded to Catalina with the 10.1 version and, in fact, that is when the problems started.

Thankfully I have plenty of storage and also have everything on iCloud.

If your photos and videos are in iCloud Photos, you can simply rebuild your Photos Library by downloading a fresh copy from iCloud. But you have to be sure, that the upload to iCloud has finished. Are you seeing all your photos and videos at www.icloud.com in the Photos.app there?

If yes, copy your current library from your Mac to a backup drive, to save the photos locally. Then create a new, empty photos library and make it your iCloud Photos Library. Your iCloud photos will download back to your Mac and recreate your library.

It will not help, however, if you are having items with an incompatible format in your library. Do you have any older items in your library with a format, that is not on the list of supported items? See: About incompatible media in iMovie for macOS - Apple Support

Such media will continually create problems in Photos.

Yes, CleanMyMac can have a lot to do with it. It is considered to be akin to malware by many around here. Uninstall according to the developer's instructions.

Macs do not need any "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up" or anti-virus apps.

Following leonié's recommendations but also remove CMM.

If you have been running Clean My Mac and let it "clean" your Photos Library, the library may be damaged beyond repair and you may need to restore the library from a backup you made, before you cleaned it.