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I successfully copied my photo library to a new external hard drive, but it appears to have copied an earlier version. About a month's worth of new photos are missing even though the library is the same size as the old one (314 GB). When I switch Photos back to the original photo library all the recent photos and albums are there. What is going on? Could this be a permissions problem?
iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.15
Thank you all for responding. I didn't supply enough information. I am trying to switch my Photoslibrary to an external drive to free up space on my hard drive. I have a 2019 21.5" iMac running Catalina 10.15.4 with a 1 TB Fusion hard drive. I already have it 85% full. I bought a Western Digital "My Passport" 4 TB external hard drive that comes formatted for Mac. I believe it uses Apple System Format System with the MAC OS Extended (Journaled) formatting. I opened a separate window in my finder and dragged the existing Photolibrary (from Pictures in the finder) to the Passport. Previously I tried successfully to drag and drop individual jpg photos and pdf documents to the drive and I was able to access those files.
The transfer took close to two hours. I was using the supplied USB-C cable hooked up to the MAC. When I tried to open the transferred library I got a dialog box: "the Photo library is locked or you do not have permission to make changes to it. Photos can try to repair the permissions" - "Quit" or "Repair". I chose "Repair". Went from 0 to 100%. Then dialog box: Photos was unable to open library "Photolibrary.photoslibrary". Then "Quit" or "Open other". I chose "Open Other". This led me to a choice between the original library or the new library. I chose the new library and I got "Operation cannot be completed".
When I went to the Photos app and hit the "Option key" as I was opening the app, I was able to switch to the new library. However, that's when I noticed that the new library did not include any changes made in the last month and a half. So, I figured why not just add the missing photos and go on? However, when I try to drag and drop new photos to the new library I get an error message "The operation cannot be completed because an unexpected error occurred. Error-50", with the button "OK".
If any of you have a suggestion, I would appreciate it.
Check to see if the drive is formatted as shown in this screenshot.
If Ownership is not ignored set it to be so and try opening the library again.
Maybe I should try copying it again with the "Unlock" icon.
Yes. But first run First Aid on the external HD with Disk Utility. Or try some of the other hints in this document: How to fix unexpected error -50 in OS X when deleting or moving files
How is the EHD formatted and connected to your Mac?
How did you transfer the library to the EHD?
No, all that's going on is that you're using the original library for these new imports, not the one on the external.
The missing photos were added before I copied the photo library, so they should be included.
Just import the missing photos into your external Photos library. If it is important to get to the bottom of it, you can always do that.
-- Rich
The lock icon was "locked". So I unlocked it, but still cannot open the library. The formatting is correct and ignore ownership is checked. Maybe I should try copying it again with the "Unlock" icon.
Transfering Photo Library on iMac to an external hard drive - Problem
