Photos & Photos library.photoslibrary

As Yer_Man says, the ".photoslibrary" holds your pictures, and Photos is an app that edits and organizes them. If you can't find your older pictures, I wonder if you have more than one library. "Photos library.photoslibrary" is the default name of the photoslibrary, but they can have other names. Try a search from the finder:

As you can see above, I have several libraries, and I also have some on external drives. If you find other libraries, you can double click on one and Photos will ask if you want to switch to that library.

This is just one possibility. If you don't have other libraries, maybe we can still help you find your pictures...

Where are these items in your Finder?

A Photos.app installation has two principal parts: The application, in your Applications folder, called Photos, and the Library, in your Pictures Folder, called Photos.photolibrary. This is where your images are actually stored.

You don't delete either of them. They're both needed for the operation of the app.

After the Ventura was launched, I upgraded my MacBook Pro 15”. I also had bought the new launch iPhone 14.  And for last almost 10 years, I have been saving all the photos captured by my iPhones onto a separate external LaCie hard drive, through my MacBook Pro. 

Immediately after upgrading to OS Ventura, the Photos app started giving trouble. It was running smoothly while checking the previous data existing on the LaCie external hard disk. But, while importing photos from my iPhone, it was getting hanged. After connecting the phone and opening the Photos app on MacBook Pro, on the computer screen it did show the new photographs available to import on the phone, but it could not import them. The clock on the left top showed photos to import from 0 to 678 , but the clock never started. 

After searching a lot of blogs and discussions on various communities, I could not find the answer. Finally, I called Apple Helpline and was connected to a gentleman. He was also quite surprised with the problem. I had to do screen sharing. Finally, he came to a conclusion that my hard drive was in ExFat format which is root of the problem.

He asked me to create a new library on some other drive, which I created on the MacBook Pro internal drive itself and tried importing the photos and it worked. So, the final solution according to him is to save or transfer all the data on the existing hard drive to some other drive. Then format the first drive with APFS format. And shift the data back onto this drive. 

I will certainly not do that. Because, for me, the data is priceless, which I can’t risk while transferring from one drive to another. It has priceless memories of my life.

So, I will simply buy a new drive and make a new library to save my photos in future. I will not forget to format that hard drive with  APFS FORMAT. 

While concluding, I would only say these stalwarts working with biggies like Apple keep on upgrading their softwares and OS systems, saying that they want to make lives better for their consumers. But, actually they are just becoming more and more narcissist and pushing their own exclusive formats and making their consumers more helpless slaves. 

According to the information provided by the expert, ExFat format is a common format between Apple and Windows. Where, APFS is an Exclusive Apple format. 

So, the final solution according to him is to save or transfer all the data on the existing hard drive to some other drive. Then format the first drive with APFS format. And shift the data back onto this drive. 

I will certainly not do that. Because, for me, the data is priceless, which I can’t risk while transferring from one drive to another. It has priceless memories of my life.

Say what now? Copying the data to a new drive is risk free. It's a copy. Copying has no effect on the material being copied. You can check the transfer has gone correctly before taking any other actions. Same with copying it back. The process offers fail safe protection. The alternative, leaving the material on an inappropriate disk format, risks dataloss in the future, as libraries in such locations frequently suffer silent degradation, issues that don't become apparent until one day you can no longer open the library at all. So, if you do care about your data you'll do exactly the opposite of what you have decided.

While concluding, I would only say these stalwarts working with biggies like Apple keep on upgrading their softwares and OS systems, saying that they want to make lives better for their consumers. But, actually they are just becoming more and more narcissist and pushing their own exclusive formats and making their consumers more helpless slaves. 

I'm trying to think of the correct word to describe this... oh yes I have it: rubbish. But you know, if you don't like it, don't be a "slave", go use some other computer. It's your data and you're free to do what you want, buy what ever system you like.

According to the information provided by the expert, ExFat format is a common format between Apple and Windows. Where, APFS is an Exclusive Apple format. 

Correct. And APFS offers more data security than Ex-Fat. But feel free to share your uninformed opinions with us all. Do try base them on a fact or two sometime though.

AVADHOOTGUPTE wrote:

According to the information provided by the expert, ExFat format is a common format between Apple and Windows. Where, APFS is an Exclusive Apple format. 

And Photos is an exclusive Apple app. It's not designed to run on PC drives and computers. Some earlier versions of iPhoto did work on ExFat drives - for a while - but eventually gave the user problems. What with the newer systems and data protection ExFAT is totally off limits for Photos libraries and their complex ecosystem of files.