This item cannot be added to your Photo library because it may be in an unrecognisable file format of the file may not contain valid data

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Level 1

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This item cannot be added to your Photo library because it may be in an unrecognisable file format of the file may not contain valid data

I have an external drive [Mac OS Extended (Journaled)] with photos on it. I can import photos post 2017 ok, but earlier photos fail with the error message which is the title of this question. There are thousands of photos all of which refuse to import, some were generated by a scanner, some are iPhone photos, some are DSLR photos and some are compact digital camera photos.

I did a "Get Info" on one of them and I've attached the results. Needless to say all photos open fine in Preview, I just cannot import them into Photos.

I have tried:

New photo library
Different user
Repair photo library
Boot into safe mode
All the above in every combination

But whatever I do Photos won't import the photo.

Help!

MacBook Pro

Posted on Nov 22, 2022 3:39 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

BikingPastor Author

Level 1

18 points

Nov 23, 2022 1:43 AM in response to léonie

If I copy photos to my system Pictures folder then they do import ok, its only if I try to import off the external hard drive - thank you, one step closer.

Any thoughts as to what it could be on the external drive? It would be really helpful to be able to make them importable off the external drive directly as I don't have a huge SSD in my MacBook ...

I'm guessing it is some form of file permission?

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

197,195 points

Nov 22, 2022 7:37 AM in response to BikingPastor

Can you import the photos to Photos, if you move them to a folder in your Pictures folder on your system volume? And try to import in smaller groups, not too many at once?

If you cannot import the photos at all, independent from the number and the location, try to modify the scans in Preview and assign a different color profile; the profile shown in your screenshot is not installed on my Mac. You could try the generic sRGB Profile.icc.

To change the profile use the command Tools > Assign Profile in Preview.

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Answer 3

Nov 23, 2022 7:59 AM in response to léonie

léonie,

A longer history of this is here:

External photos not importing on Mac - Apple Community

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This item cannot be added to your Photo library because it may be in an unrecognisable file format of the file may not contain valid data

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