Near 100GB "Masters" directory in .photoslibrary, but images don't show up

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Level 1

9 points

Near 100GB "Masters" directory in .photoslibrary, but images don't show up

Hi,

I was looking at my photo's library, but to my surprised it only contained 34 photos instead of the thousands there once used to be in there. The 34 photos seem to have come from my iCloud.

My .photoslibrary is over 100GB in size, with almost all of the size being in the Masters directory which seem to contain my photos, but the Photos app simply doesn't see them. The only pictures I can see (that came from iCloud) are in the "originals" folder and are using a miserly 100MB in total.

How can I get access to my images again? Do I simply move these out of the "Masters" directory and then import them again in a fresh library? Why does this have to happen anyway?

Let me know, these are all old photos that are dear to me from between 2014 and 2019

MacBook Pro 16″

Posted on Aug 14, 2023 7:02 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

197,083 points

Aug 14, 2023 9:14 AM in response to smiba

Which system version is running on your Mac?

Your Photos Library does not seem to have been properly updated. The older system versions - OS X 10.10.3 Yosemite to macOS 10.14 Mojave used to store the original image files in a folder Masters. Since then, the originals are in a folder "originals".

I would make a backup copy of your Photos Library, as it is now (copy it to an external drive, where you have sufficient free storage, then try to repair your Photos Library.

To repair the library, quit Photos, if it is running, then select the Photos Library in the Finder and hold down the key combination ⌥⌘ firmly, while you double click the Photos Library to open it in Photos. It is important to click the library and not the Photos.app, to ensure that the selected library will be repaired.

It may take a while for photos to repair your library, just wait.

If that does not help, copy (not move) the Master Folder to your Desktop, then try to reimport the photos to Photos. Do it in very small batches; the problem may be, that your older library contains items, that are no longer compatible with the current version of photos and need converting to a different format. This should have been done, before you upgraded the system beyond macOS 10.14 Mojave.

By importing in small batches, it is easier to identify the image files or videos, that are giving an error message and need converting.

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Answer 2

smiba Author

Level 1

9 points

Aug 14, 2023 9:30 AM in response to léonie

I'll try moving it out of there and reimporting it and see if it runs into any incompatible files. I think all these photos are from my iOS devices, so I'm not sure what may be incompatible.

I'm running MacOS 13.5

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Answer 3

smiba Author

Level 1

9 points

Aug 14, 2023 10:10 AM in response to léonie

I did, but I don't think this was in a time where anything other then jpeg was used.

I successfully imported all the pictures from the Masters directory, no errors were found

What I think may have happend is that the upgrade to 10.15 has never actually occurred. I think I was probably running something like MacOS 10.13, then bought a new macbook and imported a Time Machine backup on that new macbook running 10.15. It has never actually seen the upgrade process itself.

Either that or something else happend, I don't know, but it's back now :)

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