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My photos are greyed out in Photos app and when I click photo to enlarge, I can't see anything

Hello I have a large Photos library on a 2014 iMac that I'm trying to move to Lighroom. 30,000+ photos are all there and able to move over but I have about 4 albums that, when I click on it, I see how many photos are in the album, but all the photos are greyed out. When I click on the photos to enlarge it, it is blank.. It is like the reference to the photo is there but the photo is lost or damaged and the program can't pull it up? I don't know where to start troubleshooting? How do I find it or look on the drive? Any ideas?

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Oct 4, 2020 10:08 AM

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8 replies

Oct 4, 2020 10:25 AM in response to Jason1001

Can you tell us more about your Mac and the photos in your library?

Which system version is running on your Mac? I am asking this, because after the Catalina upgrade some older image formats and video formats are no longer supported. Is your Mac running Catalina?


What is the image format of the photos you cannot open? Are the photos JPEGs or RAW files, or in an older format PICT or BMP?


Where is the Photos Library stored? And have you been running any cleaning applications to remove duplicates or similar? Cleaning applications can damage the library.



Oct 4, 2020 10:49 AM in response to léonie

Hello - I recently upgraded to Catalina 10.15.6. All my photos should be in JPG files. I see the metadata and it looks like some of them were taken with an iPhone 5 in 2013. The library is stored locally on my Mac and I'm not running any cleaning applications. I was running a Backblaze backup program nightly but that's about it... Again out of a 25,000 photo library, its' only about 150 photos but I'm still perplexed why I can't see them and they are greyed out, although they are listed there.

Oct 4, 2020 11:34 AM in response to Jason1001

All my photos should be in JPG files.

But have you checked this?

Select one of the greyed out photos in Photos, then open the Info with ⌘I and look at the filename in the Info. What is the filename extension?

Can you export the photo with "File > Export > export unmodified Original"? If yes, can Preview open the exported photo?

Or do you get an error message, when trying to export? If yes, what is the error message, literally?



Oct 4, 2020 1:57 PM in response to léonie

The filename is IMG_7286.JPG.... it has capture date of August 6, 2013 at 5:42pm... taken by iPhone 5


I tried to export unmodified original and it acted like it was going to do it and then a message popped up saying 0 of 0 photos exported. If I export it as is (not unmodified original) I get an error screen and it says the error is "Unknown error (-1)"

Oct 5, 2020 6:45 AM in response to Jason1001

OK - my next suggestion would be to download the trial version of power photos.

https://www.fatcatsoftware.com/powerphotos/


If you use powerphotos to view the library, you can right click on the image, and select "reveal original photo in finder" This should open finder, with the original jpg file selected (if you have a more recent version of photos the filename will not be what you expect, but a long sequence of letters and numbers)


This should show if the original file is still there in the library, or has somehow gone missing. If you open it with preview, you'll be able to confirm it is the correct file.


(Do not try to move or modify any files in these locations, you are looking inside the library structure itself - manual changes will almost certainly corrupt your library)

My photos are greyed out in Photos app and when I click photo to enlarge, I can't see anything

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