Photos app looking for a library file that doesn’t exist after Time Machine restore

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Photos app looking for a library file that doesn’t exist after Time Machine restore

I had to reinstall OS X a few days ago due to my boot loader getting messed up. I did a Time Machine restore and everything worked well, except guess what? Time Machine was never backing up my photos library file. Great, thanks Time Machine!

Any way, I use iCloud to store photos, so I figured I could just open the photos app and it would rebuild my library file, just like if I did a clean install, but nope. Some config file is telling photos to look for a specific file as opposed to re-pulling from iCloud.

i have Photos option turned off in iCloud settings and if I try to turn it on it just tells me I need to set a new system library file since the other is missing. If I try to run the repair option I get the same.

what is / where is the config file(s) I need to kill so that photos thinks it is a fresh install and pulls my photos from the cloud to rebuild the library file? I have over two decades of photos there and really don’t want to do anything that may cause them to get deleted (by setting up a new library)

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Feb 22, 2023 5:00 AM

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racheals14

Community Specialist

Feb 23, 2023 7:58 AM in response to panoptic

Hello panoptic,

To resolve this issue, you'll need to designate a System Photo Library. This will allow you to enable iCloud Photos and recover the photos stored there. Designate a System Photo Library in Photos will walk you through these steps. As mentioned in that link "If you designate a new library as the System Photo Library and then turn on iCloud Photos, the photos and videos in the new library will merge with those already in your iCloud Photos. Additionally, all photos and videos from iCloud will redownload to the device."

"Quit the Photos app.
Hold down the Option key and open Photos. One of the photo libraries is already designated as YourLibraryName (System Photo Library).
Choose the library you want to designate as the System Photo Library.
After Photos opens the library, choose Photos > Settings (or Photos > Preferences) from the menu bar.
Click the General tab.
Click the Use as System Photo Library button.
If Use as System Photo Library is grayed out, the current library is already set as your System Photo Library.

Photos app showing the General tab with various settings

If you open a different library in the Photos app, and you haven't designated it as the System Photo Library, other applications will use photos from the original System Photo Library. Hold down the Option key when you open Photos to see which library is set as the System Photo Library."

If you continue to experience issues with enabling iCloud Photos after following the steps above, contact Apple Support.

Regards.

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Photos app looking for a library file that doesn’t exist after Time Machine restore

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