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BikingPastor Author

Level 1

18 points

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

Top-ranking reply

BikingPastor Author

Level 1

18 points

Posted on Nov 23, 2022 1:43 AM

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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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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