Even JPEGs can be incompatible, if they are using an older color sync profile, that is no longer supported. or if the JPEGs have been edited with an external editor, that is camouflaging TIFFs as JPEGs.
The solutions offered all seem to involve exporting deleting and then re-importing the files but I'm unable to export so that doesn't work for me
How did you try to export? There are two export options, and only exporting the unmodified original can work at all: File > Export > Export unmodified Original". Have you tried that, or did you try to export the current version with "File > Export > Export ... photos"? That cannot work for incompatible files.
You wrote you cannot edit the photo in question. Is there an error message, when you try that? Can you select the photo and use the command "Revert to Original" or is this option not available.
If the original cannot be exported, there may be two reasons: Photos cannot find the file, because the internal links are broken, or the originals have been removed.
- The original is really missing, for example,
- if the photos are referenced and the referenced files have been moved, modified, or been deleted.
- or if a cleaning software has removed the originals as duplicates
- Photos may no longer be able to find the originals, even if they are still there, because of a damaged library - for example, if the library is in an unsupported location (wrong file system format, or a synced folder, a network share).
I have several hundred photos in the "unable to upload" folder that I can't do anything with
After the Big Sur upgrade I found also many files in "Unable to upload". It turned out, that these files have been recovered files, found as "Lost&found" leftovers in the library after a repair, and I did not really need them. When I searched for the filenames in Photos, I found usually a healthy copy of the problematic file, and could simply delete the recovered file.
