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Photo Library on external drive can't eject external drive (still being used)

So I'll phrase this at the best of my abilities, english ain't my first language.

A couple of days ago I've transferred my photo library from the Mac internal storage to an external HDD, formatted MacOS Journaled, averything was fine at first, but after a couple of days I've run into a problem; whenever I open one of the libraries I created (one for each device I own) I got the "Can't eject, drive still in use" error, at first I thought that the Photos app was still open, but nope, it was not. I've used the "lsof" command in the terminal (with the proper directory to the external drive) and saw that three files/programs were still open/running:

  • photolibraryd
  • photolibraryd
  • mediaanalysisd

I've tried switching the photo library to the one I have on the mac (wich is now empty), closing with Command + Q, but nothing seems to be working, either I force eject (don't know if that's how you say it in english) the drive or log out.

I've also tried to eject the drive from Disk Utility, but the only difference is that sometimes it says that the drive is being used by the finder or some other program (doesen't specify what jus says that's still in use).

I've read online that the procecess that are still running have something to do with facial recognition or some other analysis, but it doesen't seem to be my case, but if that's so I'd like to disable said function, I'm not intrested in facial recognition, I just want a place where to store my pictures, and libraries are very useful, since they manage to organize and they also keep track of photos, so that you can only import new photos without manually select them.

Doese anyone have any suggestion/solution?

MacBook Air

Posted on Oct 9, 2022 11:31 PM

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Posted on Oct 12, 2022 7:48 AM

Ok, so I may have found a solution: one of the libraries on the external drive was selected as the "System Library", after I re-selected as the system default library the one on the Mac (the empty one) at first it seemed like nothing had changed, but after I restarted the computer the error doesen't appear anymore, so I think that as of now this problem has been solved, thx for the help!

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Oct 12, 2022 7:48 AM in response to léonie

Ok, so I may have found a solution: one of the libraries on the external drive was selected as the "System Library", after I re-selected as the system default library the one on the Mac (the empty one) at first it seemed like nothing had changed, but after I restarted the computer the error doesen't appear anymore, so I think that as of now this problem has been solved, thx for the help!

Oct 11, 2022 12:22 PM in response to just_fra

Is the library on the external volume your system Photos Library? The system Photos Library is always in use as long as you are signed into your user account. The background processes started by Photos are always expecting the system photos library to be available. If possible, keep the volume connected cited at all times (this is highly inconvenient when using a MacBook Air and not a Desktop computer.


To be able to eject the volume with the library quit Photos, then log off, then eject the external volume using a different admin account. Then log again into your main user account, but do not launch Photos.


Photo Library on external drive can't eject external drive (still being used)

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