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Level 1

8 points

Photos not working on Mac

Long story, I'll try to be brief. I recently switched back to an iPhone 12 after having a couple of Pixels... All my photos from the Pixel phone were shared vis Google Photos and Google photos on the Mac. So instead of having Google photos and Apple Photos I just decided to go with the native application. Photos are sharing fine on my iPad, Macbook and phone but not on my iMac, I did have a really old iPhoto library on an external drive which I then sent them all to Lightroom. Now I cannot open Photos (no library) nor can I select Photos in the iCloud section of preferences. How can I get my phone photos on to the Photos app on the iMac. Works fine everywhere else! Also, Messages doesn't work (sync), neither does Contacts. But that's another problem but probably related. Thanks in advance!

iMac 21.5″ 4K, macOS 11.2

Posted on Feb 15, 2021 5:05 PM

Best reply

TonyCollinet

Level 7

23,861 points

Posted on Feb 15, 2021 11:15 PM

Hold down the option key when starting photos. Are there any libraries listed? If so, open the one with "system library" next to it. (see first screenshot)

If no libraries are listed:

Click "create new" (this will create a new library). Put it in the pictures folder, and call it Photos Library.

Open your new library and go to preferences (screenshots 2 and 3).

Click the button "use as system photo library" and set up the iCloud settings as shown.

Hopefully then it will all kick into life and start syncing with iCloud.

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Photos not working on Mac

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