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ryphone21 Author

Level 1

4 points

Photos Library Downloading/Size Disagreement

I had an old iMac with my Photos Library (sync'd to iCloud) and about 1.4 TB of photos on it...the library lived on an external hard drive and the file size shows 1.4TB. I have also used 1.4TB of iCloud space...so that matches.

Got the 2021 iMac and in establishing my new Photos library on it, I opened that system library file on my new Mac...and it went from about 110k photos/8k videos down to 84k photos and 6k videos. I don't know where the missing files went.

So instead, I decided to just start a fresh system library and download the originals via iCloud photos. It successfully downloaded 110k photos/8k videos which is good. But the file size of the System Library is 5GB and does not seem to be growing after completing the download of the originals.

I am NOT using the "Optimize Storage" option. It should be pulling full sized originals.

Can anyone help with either/both issues - the missing photos and the small library size?

iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Jun 25, 2021 5:21 AM

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

197,303 points

Posted on Jun 25, 2021 6:41 AM

While you are viewing your library in Photos, check the Library location. You can see the path to the library used by Photos in the Photos > Preferences > General. Click the button "Show in Finder". Then check the size there. Is Photos using the library you expected it to use?

What is the status bar showing below the "All Photos" view? Is it still showing "Downloading" or "Updated just now"? The "Updated" message does not meant, that all original photos have been downloaded, just that Photos has synced the changes. Is the system version shown below your question still valid "macOS 10.13"? The Finder does not necessarily update the size of the library immediately. Downloading 1.4TB of images may take more than a week.

To see, what is already inside the library, you may want to ctrl-click it, then use the command "Show Package Contents, This will open a Finder window showing the folders inside the library. Be very careful not to modify anything. Just have a look at the size of the folder "original" inside the library. Is this size larger than 5GB?

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Photos Library Downloading/Size Disagreement

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