I have been deleting photos from the Photos App but the Photos Library size remains the same. I have emptied the Recently Deleted folder. I also notice that the Photos Library Date Modified does not change and remains at Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 10:24 PM. I am using Mac OS Catalina Version 10.15.7 and Photos app Version 5.0 (161.0.120). Appreciate any help in resolving this issue.
It's been noted before that sometimes the library takes a very long time, days, to reflect deletions in it's size. Have you checked the Info pane for the hard drive to see if it changed at all?
Have you tried to reindex the drive for Spotlight: How to rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support
It's been noted before that sometimes the library takes a very long time, days, to reflect deletions in it's size. Have you checked the Info pane for the hard drive to see if it changed at all?
Have you tried to reindex the drive for Spotlight: How to rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support
Hello and welcome to Apple Support Communities, hriverol!
We understand that you've been trying to reduce the size of your photo library, but nothing changes. We'd be happy to provide information to help you address this.
Try the suggestions here to free up storage since they may help with your photo library.: Free up storage space on your Mac
Have a great day!
You did empty the "Recently Deleted" album, didn't you?
OT already mentioned, that we cannot trust the file size of the Photos Library shown in the Finder. The Photos Library is a bundled package of files, and on macOS Catalina the size and the modification date for this bundled package shown in the Finder is not necessarily updated, when the internal files are changed by Photos. If the modification date is old, the file size shown is also old and not the current file size.
There are two ways to check the true size:
OK Old Toad and Leonie, here's the update. Following your feedback I waited another day and then checked both the hard drive and the Photos Library size again on August 25. Indeed, these had updated and reflected an increase in hard drive space likely the total GB's of the files deleted some days earlier. So it would appear that "sometimes" the library takes a long time to reflect the change in size as a result of the files deleted. I must point out though, that on August 25, I deleted another set of photos and videos, this time carefully recording the number of files and sizes so that I could determine how long it would take to update the changes in the Photos Library size. To my surprise, the changes were reflected a few minutes later. I double checked the number of files in the Photos App and the photos library, as suggested by leonie, and confirmed that both had been updated correctly. Thankfully I did not need to reindex Spotlight.
One other observation that perhaps helps to explain this anomaly. Yesterday, before I did any of the above, my iMac crashed twice and rebooted. I then did a manual shutdown. I don't normally shutdown my computer daily so perhaps this explains why the Photos Library and the info on the Hard Drive memory updated after I restarted the computer. This may be another useful step to follow for anyone having issues with the the Photos Library not updating when files are deleted.
Thanks for your feedback in helping to resolve this issue.
FWIW rebooting frequently, about 2-3 times per week will help system and app performance. It clears out temporary system and app cache and swap files.
Thanks I’ll follow this suggestion moving forward.
Photos Library size not reducing after I delete photos from Photos App.
