Since updating to Ventura 13.1 external G Drive photos library will not open constantly restoring

Check the "Ownership" on the external drive. The bottom looks like this:

At the bottom it must say, "Ignore ownership of this Volume"

Repairing is a problem. Have you tried these things?

• Make a new user and see if the same problem recurs with it
• Use another library if you have one, or make a small test Library with a few pictures in it and see if the same thing happens.
• Start in Safe Mode (different for different computers) This bypasses certain potentially disruptive processes.

           Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support 

The idea is to find out if the problem is with the Library, with your account, or with caches and login items, and stuff like that. One of these steps may fix the problem, but their failure to work is also diagnostic.

You say your Photos Library is on an external drive--how is that drive formatted? To get full functionality (and to avoid damaging the Photos Library) an external drive must be formatted in either APFS format or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. When you select your external drive and type command-I for information, you can see the Format:

(Don't use case-sensitive unless you have to!)

Additionally, the drive can not have had Time Machine on it since it was formatted.

Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

Formatting seems the most likely problem. Let us know...

Kate,

I do agree that we have to agree on terminology. For instance, I didn't realize G-drive was a sort of brand name-- I was confusing things like the C-drive in Windows. So I've been working on it:

"Photos" is an app-- it's relatively small, like 0.01GB in size. It has no pictures (notice how I say pictures or images, not photos-- the app name causes confusion!) The "Photos" app is in the Applications folder, and its icon is also in the Dock.

To "Open Photos" is the same thing as to "Run the Photos application." You can run Photos by clicking on its icon (in the Dock or in the Applications folder), by double clicking on the Photos Library icon, or by double clicking on any file that you've designated to be opened by Photos.

Also, Photos can be told to open when a camera or an SD card is connected. Or it may be that an app called Image Capture (which lets you put pictures places other than Photos Library) opens when an SD card is inserted. Or some other app opens. That's why I'm asking for details. When you say "import on to the external drive" I'm not sure which app is doing the importing.

The "Photos Library," 1 to 100 GB in size (or more), is where "Photos" stores all the pictures and information about them. The "Photos Library" (default name is "Photos Library.photoslibrary," but I have one named Ireland.photoslibrary, for instance) is originally created in the Pictures folder of the user account. But the Photos Library can be anywhere you want on the internal Mac drive, and it can be on an external drive as long as that drive is connected by a cable (not a network) and is "Formatted for Mac" so it can support the features Photos is looking for. And the volume must never have had Time Machine on it since it was formatted.

"iCloud" does lots of stuff. Here in the Mac Photos forum we usually mean "using iCloud.com to synchronize the Photos Library across macs, iPhones, and iPads." But iCloud also has email and other stuff, including a virtual disk drive where you can keep files and folders. So if someone says "I put that picture on iCloud," we may assume they mean iCloud Photos when they meant "iCloud Drive." These things do get so confused in conversation!

So when you say " These images appear also in iCloud," do you mean in the synced Photos section of iCloud.com-- the cloud app that looks pretty much like Mac Photos? or something else?

Sorry about the length and possible silliness of this-- I just thought we might be meaning different things from the same words.

The drive if formatted correctly. Try the following: as a test launch Photos with the Option key held down and create a new, test library.  Import some photos and test to see if the same problem persists. Does it? This tells us if the problem is limited to your current library or is more wide spread.

If the new library preforms as expected close it and open your original library.

What I said in my previous post was that you should create a test library on the external drive, import a couple of photos into it and close an open it a couple of time to make sure it works. Then double click on your original library to open it and see if it will open.

If that fails, double click on your original library while holding down the Option+Command key to start the repair of the library.

What sarcasm? I took it that you didn't understand what I originally said so restated it in a different way. Sorry you took it wrongly. (Opps, that sounds too much like "biggly". Should be just wrong.)

What do you mean by "import on to the external drive?" (There are so many ways to do this.) Does the Photos app come up automatically when you pop in the SD card? And that's stopped happening?

What happens when you double click on the .PhotosLibrary package on your external drive? Does that open Photos?

Do you use Time Machine?

yogikate wrote: "I do use time machine"

Time machine is a funky thing-- it requires the entire volume, even if there's space, there. So if you somehow get your Photos Library onto a Time Machine drive, it may work sometimes, but it is sure to fail. In fact, the Photos Library can't be on a volume that has ever had Time Machine on it, unless it has been re-formatted since.

Is this the problem? If so, you need to drag that Photos Library to your internal drive or to another hard drive formatted for Mac.

Or, you can use Disk Utility to divide your external drive into two volumes and drag the Photos Library from the TM volume to the new volume on the same drive.

You can't have too many hard drives! Well, I have so many I can't keep up with them. I have a program that has the directories of all the drives, so I can search for what I want without having them actually connected.

Prices have gone up, of course. SSDs with 1000MB/s speed are like $75/TB. Mechanical drives are maybe half that. If you're running a Photos Library on the drive, don't try using a Flash drive-- you need speed and reliability.