photos "closing library"

Hi

Is the external drive correctly set up for using with a photos library?

• It must be formatted APFS or MacOS extended (journaled) (preferred for spinning drives)
• It Must not be (or have been) used for time machine.
• It must have the 'ignore ownership" checkbox ticked.
• It should not be on a memory stick, SD or similar.
• It must also not be a network drive (a direct connection is required - eg USB or Thunderbolt).
• File sharing services such as iCloud Drive, Drop box, Onedrive etc are not compatible with Photos libraries.

It stands to reason that if you want any sort of reasonable performance it should be a fast drive with a fast connection.

See

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201517

You can answer most of these questions by selecting the drive, and opening the info pane (CMD-I)

Are you sure, Photos is freezing (meaning you will get a hang report, the you look at the Console logs) or it Photos just slow and spend several minutes before the library is closed? How large is your library? And is the system version given below your post still valid "macOS 10.13". The reason I am asking is because Photos 3 on High Sierra tends to postpone to save any updates to the Photos Library, until we are no longer using Photos. I have seen Photos being busy to update the Photos Library for ten minutes after I quit it. It has not been hanging, but just been unresponsive and very busy, doing its thing. As your Mac mini is not a portable Mac that you need to carry around, there is usually no reason to force quit Photos at all, unless you want to switch to a different Photos Library. Try to wait, until Photos has finished closing and saved all new updates to the Photos Library. A Force Quit can damage the library and leave it in an inconsistent state. If you repeatedly force quit Photos, I would make a backup and repair the library. ( Repair the library )

If Photos cannot close the library, even after a long, long wait, you may want to check, if you are having legacy media in the library, that cannot be processed by your version of Photos. How to Weed out Legacy Media in Photos for Mac - Apple Community

You must not keep a library on a volume with the file system format "ExFAT". This format is not compatible with Photos for Mac and is meant to be used with Windows computers. You can store single files there, but not Photos Libraries.

You have to change the file system format to MacOS Extended (Journaled) with Disk Utility. But reformatting the volume will erase it. So you have to move the library and all important data from the external volume to a different volume, before you change the file system format. Look at the the Help of Disk Utility how to do this. This link seems currently to be broken (https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/erase-and-reformat-a-storage-device-dskutl14079/mac)

And I could not see your earlier reply either. Perhaps there has been some maintenance work been going on. Now they seem to be back, particularly: Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac – Apple Support

Hi - ExFat is not a suitable format for a photos library. That is very likely the cause of your problems.

You need to move your photos library somewhere else (eg to another external drive, or temporarily to your internal drive), and then re-format your drive as described in the link in my first post using disk utility - choose APFS.

If you don't, you'll most likely get gradual degradation in your library with possible loss of your photos.

I'd also suggest making sure you have a backup before you do anything else.

As long as the drive is formatted in either of these formats the drive is OK:

I have several external SSDs that are formatted OS X Extended (journaled) for external storage. Either will work.

As I say in my first bullet point.

All apple help articles seem to be down at the moment. I guess they'll be back up soon.

Yes, Time Machine cannot backup from exFat formatted drives.