PhotoLibrary (330GB) won't open on MacBook or anywhere! Help? iCloud? How?

Hi Keith,

Catalina 10.15.5.

For several days, it would show a screen "Updating Library" and a progress bar that stuck on 5% for hours.

Today, I spent a lot of time in these forums. Found that, indeed, just keep it running. So, right now my fingers are crossed on yet another "Updating Library" and indeed, it has been chugging along ... but left untouched... and with the MacBook elevated to help keep it cool ... the progress report is up to 64% !

Not sure where I'm going. If it works, it will open up the photo library?

WHOA! While typing this note, it raced miraculously to the finish! IT DID OPEN the photo library &12,000+ photos!

Wow! I am hero to my family. But I am afraid to touch it for a while. Should I let my screen just shine gloriously with photos overnight?

------------------------------------

Next step might be to delete 50% of the files out of there (ouch) to reduce the filesize?

Then somehow (I need step-by-step handholding) get it off the MacBook HD and into iCloud.

330GB on a 500GB drive just isn't helpful. Not sure how to do this.

Can I somehow leave thumbnails on the MacBook, that point to, and call down the large 5MB individual photos when clicked?

--------------------------------------

Finally, I do have a Big Sur OS update ready to fire up when appropriate. I understand from these forums that I might need to re-open Photos with the Command or Option or both keys held down simultaneously?

-------------------------------------

Not giving up. Patience is essential. I came soooo close to deep-sixing the 330GB file and 12,000 beauties.

Learning a lot here in my first day on the Apple Discussion boards. Thank you, Contributors!

Tony, it took 48 hours to upload 12,653 original size jpgs to iCloud. Progress bar steadily counted down the precise number of photos left to go and it clipped along at about 300photos/hour. Finished and left a msg "Updating...." where the progress bar had been. Did not know if it was truly finished, but checked into iCloud library from another MacBook. Sure enough, all 12,653 were there... in big format. Checked out the 2TB storage management, and looks like we're storing almost 90GB on the iCloud. Tried downloading a single photo, and the 4GB file came down perfectly intact. So far, so good!

If I return to Photos app on MacBook, select PHOTOS>PREFERENCES>iCLOUD PHOTOS> and select Optimize Mac Storage, I'd expect the files on the MacBook to compress, and give us more room on local MacBook, yes? And the same photos, left in iCloud Photos, will remain at full size and resolution, correct? Just checking, before I do this. Don't want to give back 2 days of download time.

Sorry to belabor this exercise, hopefully it may help others doing same. Thank you again. I give you highest marks.

Tony, this is gold. Did everything as you diagrammed. Flawless. Thank you very much.

Yes, he had some 1,400 small videos. Carved those out as you described. Now on external HD. Yes, I had a USB3 so it went fairly quickly. Deleting the files from the Recently Deleted folder took some patience. At first, just each file's picture icon disappeared leaving a square gray icon, but after several tries, and restarting the machine, these disappeared entirely. Space freed up.

He still had 13,000 photos to deal with, and yes, I think many were Raw formats. So, a lot of GB space.

Your follow-on post was extremely useful as well. Particularly regarding getting the files up to the iCloud. Ahh. Likely, I never would have found the Photos>Preferences area. That little General/iCloud screen is the key! First, I renamed his .photoslibrary filename, and stuck it in his Pictures directory. Then made it the System Photo Library.

Second, I triggered a send of the original files to iCloud, while Optimizing files on the local MacBook. It's going to take a while... after 6 hours we have 3,000 of 13,000 up to his 2TB iCloud account and it continues. Maybe done tomorrow sometime?

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. My son can see his scads of photos. And we both understand significantly more about managing files locally and in the iCloud. Many thank yous! Your guidance invaluable.

Last, once the transfer of files is complete tomorrow, and the machine is calm, has plenty of power and room, I hope to install the latest OS on son's MacBook. MacOS Big Sur. I will also hit trigger buttons so machine knows to look for updates as they are proffered by Apple.