Since Ventura update I cannot import photos.

So that is your problem. ExFat is not a compatible format for a photos library. Inconsitent behaviour or even dataloss can be expected.

You need to move your library to a volume formatted APFS or MacOS extended.

See

Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac – Apple Support (UK)

Make sure your external storage device, such as a USB drive or

Thunderbolt drive, is formatted for Mac: either APFS format or Mac OS Extended (Journalled) format.

You can't store your library on a storage device used for Time Machine backups. And to avoid possible data loss, don't store your library on a removable storage device, such as an SD card or USB flash drive, or on a device shared over your network or the internet, including over a cloud-based storage service.

TonyCollinet wrote:

...To be honest it is ridiculous that the app doesn’t detect an incompatible volume, and refuse to work with it (with appropriate message) until you sort it out

What is even more ridiculous is, that it is not mentioned in the very long Photos Help text, only in a separate knowledge base article.

For macOS 10.12 Sierra there has still been a warning in the Photos Help, that the system Photos Library needs to be on a volume formatted macOS Extended (Journaled), if we want to use iCloud Photos. https://help.apple.com/photos/mac/1.2/?lang=en#/pht211de786

"By default, your System Photo Library is stored in the Pictures folder on your Mac, but you can move it to another location on your Mac or store it on an external storage device. However, to use iCloud services, the external storage device must be formatted using Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format, also known as HFS+."

Even this last hint has been removed in the current Photos user guide for Ventura, from all versions since macOS 10.14 Mojave, when APFS has been introduced - compare:

"By default, your System Photo Library is stored in the Pictures folder on your Mac, but you can move it to another location on your Mac or store it on an external storage device."

How are the users to supposed to find the necessary information about the required format of the volume with the library?

Where is it safe to store a Photos Librar… - Apple Community

Hi

What format is the external drive? Are you able to enable "ignore ownership" on it?

Also asking for help. So if your external HD is EXFAT and has worked for years with photos and importing is it possible to change the External HD to another format which will work? or are we stuck because apple has changed the allowable formats with Ventura?

The required formats haven't changed**. The linked document has had that requiremnet at least for as long as the 5 years I've been using photos.

You can't change the format without erasing your drive. You'll either need to copy the library somewhere else while you do so, or get another external drive, format that correctly, and copy the library to that.

Before you do anything, make sure you have a secure backup.

**The problem with incompatible volumes is they can work - until they don't. Operating the library on one can result in a gradual build up of errors in the library until it eventually stops opening, otherwise malfunctions, or a later OS version decides it can't work with it. To be honest it is ridiculous that the app doesn’t detect an incompatible volume, and refuse to work with it (with appropriate message) until you sort it out

Tony is right; EXFAT has never been a safe format for Photo Libraries, not ever for Apple's flagship professional application Aperture or iPhoto. Apple has always warned against keeping a library on a volume with an incompatible format. You can store single files on EXFAT volumes, to transfer files between Macs and Windows PCs, but a photo library can and will get damaged sooner or later, because there may be conflicts between filenames and internal links can break.

Previously, Apple did just warn against putting libraries in unsafe locations. What has changed is, that due to the more advanced security features in the more recent versions of MacOS, the Photos.app is now checking the location of a library before working with it, to prevent data loss, and also to take advantage of the advanced features in APFS to save storage.

I too had this problem with my Wife's machine, it took me ages to try and work this out, to compound the matter we just lost our dog to cancer and the last pictures of her were on the phone and would not copy. Apple dialled in and spent an hour diagnosing it and came up with there was a problem with the disk. Not so it was the format as ExFat was the culprit. Hats off to all those that found it and produced this thread, it has saved my bacon.

I have a variant of the same "not able to import" issue! This time, the import won't even start while reading old (+10 years) JPEG images. I am able to open all of these images in Preview App and export them over my desktop as HEIC and even JPEG 2000 format, BUT Photos App in Ventura 13.1 would refuse to import every one of them. Bottom line; not an external disk, nor an EXFAT format is the issue in my case! :(

I apparently should have imported my photos before updating to Ventura. Photos sees my iPhone, identifies the pics for import and says it is starting the import but then never starts it. My external drive is also ExFat. I have never had an issue with it. Apple needs to release a fix for this!!!

Just had the Ventura update and found this problem too. I've only got everything onto hard drives in the last month and am very frustrated right now.

I checked that the sandisc hard drives I was using were recommended and they appeared to be formatted, I researched so much but never came across this other formatting or would have done it in the first place! Please make it clearer that this is needed.

I'm going to need to get a new hard drive to format as I don't have space to move stuff around. Why were we not warned about this before updating. My work relies on being able to download and edit videos. A heads up would have been good.

Running into the same problem. Any update or workaround from anyone?

Just did an experiment to format one USB drive to Mac OS extended. Copied a small photo library there. I was able to import an image into that library.