Transfer Photos Library to Monterey

I'm having trouble transferring my Photos library from an old MacBook Pro running Sierra 10.12.6 to a new 2021 Mac Book Pro M1 running Monterey 12.0.1

I have tried to follow the instructions on this help page but it's not working

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT209528

I have copied the old library to a USB drive and mounted the drive on the new MacBook. When I open Photos from the system photo library, go to File > Import and select the old library, I get a Cannot Import Item message. (See attached). If I follow the instructions to repair then the old library eventually opens in Photos but I have no way of importing it to the system library.

Can I simply move / rename the existing photoslibrary file in Pictures and copy the older photoslibrary into it ?

Any help or advice on how to complete this process would be much appreciated ! Thank you.

MacBook Pro (2020 and later)

Posted on Nov 10, 2021 3:19 AM

Top-ranking reply

Keith Barkley

Level 7

21,626 points

Posted on Nov 10, 2021 6:15 AM

Have you tried to just launch Photos (it is a Photos library, right?) with the option key held down and selecting the library? There is no need to import it. This would be the way to upgrade it to V7.

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Transfer Photos Library to Monterey

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