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Lots of problems with photos 5.0 and Catalina 10.15

After migrating my library from iPhoto to photos, I have had loads of problems and it seems that a lot of the work that I did, (hundreds of hours), have been wasted. I find myself now re naming virtually everybody in the library and it is painful. No circles, automatically on most faces and when you add one it is nowhere near the face, can't be dragged either. Difficult to delete ones you don't want too, you can't delete from strangers at all. I have over 80,000 pictures and had over 60,000 that I had previously worked on in iPhoto. I despair with Apple and have been a devoted customer, business and private since 1984. I wonder why now. It's so frustrating, Apple update software and so much of what you have done previously is lost, gone. When you add a name, it jumps to conclusion far too quickly and when you delete, half the time it wants to delete the picture, slow, painful, frustrating. What do I do?

iMac 27″, 10.15

Posted on Oct 11, 2022 1:40 AM

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Posted on Oct 11, 2022 3:04 AM

You may want to give Photos some more time to scan the library again for faces, so you do not have to add so many of them manually. I waited more than a week after the upgrade, before I started to add missing faces. With 80000 photos it may take even longer. And use the command "confirm additional faces" for each person at the bottom of the People album for the person, before you go to the trouble of adding faces manually.


If you cannot adjust the faces circle or move it to another position, try one of the following fixes:

  • Click into the image outside the faces circle. Usually you will then be able to move the circle and to adjust its size.
  • Or enter the name of the person into the name field, while the circle is still in the center. Then drag the circle to the correct place.
  • Or close the Info panel, as the problem is caused by the Info panel claiming the focus for the input.



If you just migrated from iPhoto to Photos, there may be videos or older images in your library, that you imported using iPhoto, that now can no longer be processed on Catalina. Check, if Photos as created a folder or album named "Unable to upload". Items in that album will be causing problems when scanning for faces.


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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Oct 11, 2022 3:04 AM in response to macaroon55

You may want to give Photos some more time to scan the library again for faces, so you do not have to add so many of them manually. I waited more than a week after the upgrade, before I started to add missing faces. With 80000 photos it may take even longer. And use the command "confirm additional faces" for each person at the bottom of the People album for the person, before you go to the trouble of adding faces manually.


If you cannot adjust the faces circle or move it to another position, try one of the following fixes:

  • Click into the image outside the faces circle. Usually you will then be able to move the circle and to adjust its size.
  • Or enter the name of the person into the name field, while the circle is still in the center. Then drag the circle to the correct place.
  • Or close the Info panel, as the problem is caused by the Info panel claiming the focus for the input.



If you just migrated from iPhoto to Photos, there may be videos or older images in your library, that you imported using iPhoto, that now can no longer be processed on Catalina. Check, if Photos as created a folder or album named "Unable to upload". Items in that album will be causing problems when scanning for faces.


Oct 12, 2022 4:09 AM in response to léonie

Thank you for that help. Clicking outside the circle worked, how would you ever know that?, how illogical, but it worked! And entering the name worked too.

I migrated this library two years ago, so it has had plenty of time. I do still see in people/faces.

I do use the 'confirm additional faces'

I do still get 'People will finish updating when photos is in the background' though, which I don't understand.

Lots of problems with photos 5.0 and Catalina 10.15

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