You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

User profile for user: sternbz
sternbz Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

Mac Photos "Unspported Library" on NAS

Hello,


I recently moved my entire Photos Library from a Thunderbolt 2 External Hard Drive to a Synology NAS. After the migration, I removed the original External Drive, and remapped the library to the copied folder on the NAS. Everything worked perfectly! ...until...


48 hours later, there was a brief power outage, and we had to reboot the system - no big deal. Reconnected to the NAS, mounted the drive, etc. But then, when I open the library, it is "unsupported" and the library had been created with a newer version of Photos.


It's pretty important I recover all this because in addition to the photos themselves, I have a bunch of albums, books, and metadata, all in there.


Any help or advice is appreciated! Thanks!

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on May 28, 2020 9:40 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply
User profile for user: Barney-15E
Barney-15E
User level: Level 10
117,142 points

Posted on May 28, 2020 9:53 AM

The Photos library needs to be on a Mac formatted drive, HFS+ or APFS. Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

However, that message seems a bit odd for that to be the problem.


If you Start Photos holding down cmd+opt, you may be able to repair the library.


Otherwise, Ctrl-click on the library and choose Show package contents. You can dig through it and pull out the photos, but they are not stored in a folder structure that is simple to navigate.



View in context

Similar questions

3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply
User profile for user: Barney-15E
Barney-15E
User level: Level 10
117,142 points

May 28, 2020 9:53 AM in response to sternbz

The Photos library needs to be on a Mac formatted drive, HFS+ or APFS. Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

However, that message seems a bit odd for that to be the problem.


If you Start Photos holding down cmd+opt, you may be able to repair the library.


Otherwise, Ctrl-click on the library and choose Show package contents. You can dig through it and pull out the photos, but they are not stored in a folder structure that is simple to navigate.



Reply
User profile for user: Old Toad
Old Toad
User level: Level 10
210,841 points

May 28, 2020 3:31 PM in response to sternbz

The following is from this Apple document: Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

You can store your library on an external storage device, such as a USB, FireWire, or Thunderbolt drive formatted as MacOS Extended (Journaled). Apple doesn't recommend storing photo libraries on external storage devices like SD cards and USB flash drives, or drives that are shared on a network.
You can't store your library on a disk that's used for Time Machine backups.

This user tip also describes the issue in detail: Where is it safe to store a Photos Library - 2019 Version


Reply

Mac Photos "Unspported Library" on NAS

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.
Learn more Sign up