Can't move thousands of referenced photos to new Mac

Problem: Like probably millions of loyal Apple users I can't move my large Photo library to new Mac:

  • Use case: A life-time in Photo app with ten thousands of photos & videos referenced on local HD (TB range 📷) and thousands in iCloud (GB range📱) shared across many Apple devices with friends & family
  • Problem: For usability and cost reasons I will not move TB of files into iCloud - but I can not mass-migrate referenced photos library to new Mac and SSD either (see many complains like from these users)


Solution ideas:

  1. @Apple: short-term could you pls add a minimal library tool to automatically fix broken references at scale re-using a new root path for all referenced photos (Aperture had this, most music sample software has this - even Ventura single photo fix popup is now gone in Sonoma)?
  2. @Apple: long-term could you pls add dynamic references like your Music app (local MP3 files freely movable without breaking DB links)?
  3. @Community: Are you aware of any 3rd party tools helping - my search found nothing and hacking the photos.sqlite DB breaks the library due to use of BLOB and security scoped links)?


Thanks much all for you help (and yes I posted this as feature request, too 😉)

Mac mini (M2, 2023)

Posted on Oct 25, 2023 3:04 AM

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2 replies

Oct 25, 2023 3:30 AM in response to Yer_Man

Thanks @Yer_Man, and I read your other recommendation on the topic:

re 1 and 2: yepp, did that

re 3: I hear you, back to 1 then...


I don't give up yet on requesting this from Apple as the market for hybrid life-time photo storage is so large (like 30% cloud 70% local).


And I get a little hope that they seem to actively work on this: Sonoma Photos still has referenced photos but lost the "fix reference" feature which Ventura Photos still has... Progress, kind of 😅

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Can't move thousands of referenced photos to new Mac

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