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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

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User profile for user: Barney-15E
Barney-15E
User level: Level 10
116,482 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.



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User profile for user: Barney-15E
Barney-15E
User level: Level 10
116,482 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.



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User profile for user: Old Toad
Old Toad
User level: Level 10
210,533 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


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Mac Photos "Unspported Library" on NAS

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