Photos App not recognizing photos library

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Photos App not recognizing photos library

I was importing photos into my library the other day and the app crashed. It gave me the report issue which I did.

Then I waited and reopened the Photos app and it asked me which library I wanted to open. I tried to locate my Photos library but could not. Decided to check the trash and located my library. Took it out and tried to open it and received a message saying it could not open the library.

Im not sure what is going on but it opened my other library just fine. I separate my libraries as one for family photos, my drone business, and older photos. My libraries are pretty large I keep them on external hard drives and have been doing this for years and never had an issue before.

Any ideas on why this happened. I have searched through the community but could not find anything close to this.

Thanks in advance.

I working on a 27 inch iMac (late 2013), MacOS Catalina 10.15.7

iMac 27″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Aug 29, 2021 4:32 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

TonyCollinet

Level 7

23,861 points

Aug 29, 2021 8:30 AM in response to Nicholsfamily

Hi

Is the external drive correctly set up for using with a photos library?

It must be formatted APFS or MacOS extended (journaled) (preferred for spinning drives)

It Must not be (or have been) used for time machine. (A time machine drive can be used if re-formatted)

It must have the 'ignore ownership" checkbox ticked.

It should not be on a memory stick, SD or similar.

It must also not be a network drive (a direct connection is required - eg USB or Thunderbolt).

File sharing services such as iCloud Drive, Drop box, Onedrive etc are not compatible with Photos libraries.

See

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201517

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Photos App not recognizing photos library

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