How to fix Error in PHOTOS App on my iMac 27 running High Sierra, 10.13.6

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How to fix Error in PHOTOS App on my iMac 27 running High Sierra, 10.13.6

On 11/2/2022, I moved and renamed my PHOTOS App "photoslibrary" File on my iMac 27 to an External HD with its current size of 1.18 TB as "Andy_1.18 TB" because I have was having storage issues on a smaller external HD. It took over 3 days to move the file and to copy and paste another identical file to the same location with a _2 after the backup file to differentiate between the two. When it was done three days ago I opened up the main file without a problem. Today I opened up PHOTOS while holding down the Option" key so that I could point my App to the new file "photoslibrary" file that had opened up three days ago without any problems I got the below error on both files. The approximate number of items in my iCloud PHOTOS App shows a total of 171,045 items and on 11/6/2022 there were 172,335 Items

Currently on the iCloud PHOTOS App is 171,050.

What can I do to fix this?

Andy

iMac 27″

Posted on Nov 8, 2022 5:33 PM

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Answer 1

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Old Toad

Level 10

210,831 points

Nov 9, 2022 9:54 AM in response to andyhutch1947

How is the external drive formatted? It must be either APFS (for SSDs) or Mac OS Extended (journaled) - for rotational drives.

It sounds like it might be formatted EX Fat witch is a Window's format which Macs can read and write to but Photos will not work on.

It it's not the Mac formats you'll have to copy the library to another drive, reformat the external drive and copy it back by dragging to the EHD.

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Answer 2

Nov 10, 2022 6:04 PM in response to Old Toad

Both the Internal Macintosh HD (2 TB) and External HD (5 TB) are formatted as Mac OS Extended (journaled) and the External has been in use for a couple years now.

I just checked the information in "Get Info", and I included the image below, and see that the 5 TB now only has 718 GB available because the photolibrary files are so large.

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Answer 3

Nov 10, 2022 10:53 PM in response to andyhutch1947

Yes everything is formatted as Mac OS Extended (journaled).

Well I had to close my Mac and when I restarted PHOTOS I held down the Option Key and all of the "photoslibrary" files showed up including the two 1.18 TB files that I had copied to the External HD. I clicked on the main file and it opened up fine. So I went to PHOTOS/Preferences/General and it showed it was using the 1.18 TB file on the Ext HD so I selected "Use As System Photo Library. It said that I needed to select "iCloud and then to select "iCloud Photo Library/Download Originals to this Mac and I did this. A few seconds later another window opens and shows the following. Is iCloud going to save an additional 1.18 TB PHOTOS file on my iCloud?

I noticed that my iCloud/PHOTOS account is complete and up to date. Should I somehow just start with an empty new PHOTOIS file on my iMac and let the iCloud download a current new updated file on my iMac and if so shouldn't it rebuild the new PHOTOS file on my iMac? Sorry I think I repeated my statement. A little nervous with all this now. My iPhone 12 Pro Max says I am using 1.3 TBs of the 2 TBs now. It just doesn't make any sense why it has a problem downloading to my iMac and updating everything. I guess that is it for now. Thanks for your help. I really do appreciate it.

Andy

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Answer 4

Old Toad

Level 10

210,831 points

Nov 11, 2022 8:28 AM in response to andyhutch1947

Should I somehow just start with an empty new PHOTOIS file on my iMac and let the iCloud download a current new updated file on my iMac and if so shouldn't it rebuild the new PHOTOS file on my iMac?

Yes, that would be one way to get a non-optimized Photos library on your external HD with all albums, metadata, etc. It could take a while but just leave Photos on in the background while you work on the Mac and leave it on all night.

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How to fix Error in PHOTOS App on my iMac 27 running High Sierra, 10.13.6

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