A second icon for photos has showed up on my mac

Hi gepatience,

It seems you're seeing an unexpected icon on your Mac and we are here to help.

Where are you seeing this icon?

If it's on your dock, try to remove it from your dock:

Use the Dock on Mac

Let us know more about what you're seeing and we'll try to help.

Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities.

There are two icons associated with Photos.

One is for the application:

This file does not contain your photos. It's only used to access the second icon which is for the library:

This is the file that contains all of your photos. It should be located in your Home/Pictures folder. The Photos app should be located in the Home/Applicatons folder.

You do have a backup strategy enabled, i.e. Time Machine or equivalent? If not that should be your first priority.

The Photos.app needs a Photos Library to be able to run. The Photos Library contains the photos and videos you import to Photos. By default this library will be locates in your Pictures folder. If Photos cannot access your main library for some reason, it may create a new library to be able to launch at all and you will find two Photos Libraries. You can switch between multiple Photos Libraries by double-clicking the library you want to open. If you have more than one library and are not sure, if a library is redundant and can be deleted, open the libraries in turn and compare them, to check, if the additional libraries contain photos, that need saving.

Which icon, the library or the app?