Photos slideshow export problems

As a work-around, I brought all image resources in iMovie, measured the time of my audio clip and assigned time and transitions to each image individually. The result is a 1080p movie file that actually better (and more adaptive) than anything Photos would produce. Was it a pain, well, yeah... but at least I didn't have to "curse the dark." Maybe it will work for you too.

Don't know if this will help, but my new Mac Book Pro with an M1 chip, 8GB RAM, and freshly updated to 11.1 is having the same issue. I was able to output a 480ppi version but both 720 and 1080 will express insufficient application memory and Photos will crash. I did observe Activity Monitor and saw heavy CPU usage with Photos (40%+), Kernal Task (50+), and Mail (of all things) registering 90% until I closed it... but photos still crashed.

Hi BirdManCAS

Have you tried using different themes from Classic - as described above?

Using Macbook Pro with 8GB RAM and using Big Sur 11.1. Photos slideshow production proceeds OK, with music included. However, all attempts to export slideshows with more than 50 or so photos and music drop out, with the error message 'your system has run out of application memory' displayed (even though all other non-essential applications have been closed). This has not happened before when using Catalina on the same computer. Please help ?

This keeps happening even though there's been an update. The other themes don't appear to be less complicated so I'm not sure why this isn't fixed yet. The workaround is more like, "just get used to it not working".

I have yes ...and it works ! However the other themes don’t really suit my end result...so I guess I need to wait for the patch ...or go back to Catalina OS ?

Welcome to the world of apple. They are not quick at fixing bugs and frustratingly there is no way of getting a timeline (or even an indication they are working on it)

Well, I know what you mean, but there's no harm in being positive (no matter how painful that can be).

Very true 🙂

Hey there StrategyAus,

We'd like to help get your slideshows exported without any issue, so let's start with confirming some basics:

1. You mentioned having macOS Big Sur installed, but the latest version is macOS Big Sur 11.1. You can verify which version number is installed by clicking on the Apple logo at the top left corner of the screen, then on ‘About This Mac’. Here's how to first Back up your Mac with Time Machine, and afterwards, here's How to update the software on your Mac.
2. Let’s make sure all of your apps are up to date: Update apps or use automatic downloads
3. Have you already tried a restart since this began to occur? Check out the section 'Restart' here: Log out, sleep, wake, restart, or shut down your Mac
4. Another good idea would be to try exporting your slideshow to another place other than the one you're currently trying.
5. You can check within Activity Monitor to see what's using the most memory. You can open Activity Monitor by clicking on the magnifying glass logo at the top right of the screen, then type in 'Activity Monitor'. After opening it, you'd click on Memory, then organize it by what's using the most.

If you need more help, we recommend reaching out to Apple Support here: Get Support

Take care.

Had the exact same issue with the Photos app crashing and generating an out of memory error. Exporting with low resolution 480 dpi with the Classic theme will work depending on the total number of photos in the slideshow, yet 720 and 1080 would get roughly two thirds the way through exporting and crashes at around 60GB of virtual memory use.