I imported about 2gb of photos and the .photolibrary file is over 8gb, is this normal?
If so, can someone explain why/how that is?
Theoretically wouldn't it save a lot of space having them as "referenced" files?
Thanks
Earlier Mac models
Thank you for the reply, I do not have iCloud turned on at all on any devices.
I think it is worth noting that I uploaded over 7,000 files and that I haven't edited or done anything to any of the images.
But I guess the thumbnails and the database files add up. It just surprises me that it is over 4 times the size of the original files. 2gb of photos uploaded vs 8gb .photolibrary
Referenced fils are not saving space - they are just a an added complication and can be causing a lot of trouble.
A Photos Library is storing the original image files plus some working copies to make Photos faster (thumbnails for browsing, previews of the edited versions, faces thumbnails, also database files to manage the structure of the library (albums, smart albums, folders, projects) and the metadata and adjustments of the photos.
The storage for the originals will be the same, whether the originals are stored in the library or referenced outside the library. And the storage for the working copies will also be the same. Usually the working copies will need roughly 205 to 30% of the size of the originals. If the library size doubles, you may have been syncing your library to an iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV and photos may have created a cache of the synced photos. These caches can be quite large.
Or are you using iCloud Photos for syncing with the option "Optimize Mac Storage"? Then the size of your library may have increased, if original image files have been downloaded from iCloud.
You may want to look into the Photos Library to check where the storage is used. But just look, do not modify anything inside the library contents.
You will be seeing a Finder window, showing the folders inside the Photos Library package. Usually the folder "Originals" should be the largest folder. It should be roughly the size of the image files you imported. The next large folder should be "resources".
If the folder resources is larger than the folder "originals", the image files you imported are probably very small, so that the thumbnails will have the same size.in my library the average image file has a size of 3MB, which is much larger than the thumbnails. YOur image files seem to be considerably smaller, if you imported 7000 items, but the total size is just 2GB. That would be anaverage of just 0,3 MB, just a tenth of the size of my original image files.
.photolibrary file many times larger than original file size
