I switched drives to an SSD and restored my files from Time Machine. Now, every time that I want to open Photos, it goes directly to a very lengthy "Restoring Photos" program and takes a long time to complete. Why does that happen and how do I correct it?
iMac 27″ 5K, macOS 13.6
Where is the library located? If on an external drive that drive must b APFS or OS X Extended (journaled) and connected directly to the iMac via cable.
If you meed all of those requirements and it's still restoring every time it's opened try the following:
Lauch the library with the Optrion+Command keys held down and repair the library.
Open Photos with the Option key held down and in the Choose Library window select the library and see what the location is just below the window:
Oh, to be 85 again.
The Photos Library is a package file that is usually located in the Pictures folder on the Mac's internal hard drive. It's usually named, cleverly, "Photoslibrary.photoslibrary" Sometimes people store that Library on an external drive to help make more space available on their internal drive.
When you say that you "switched drives to an SSD" what do you mean? Did someone remove the original hard drive inside your iMac and replace it with a new SSD? Or did you replace an external hard drive?
Where was your Time Machine backup? This is usually on an external drive that's plugged into your computer. It is important that the Photos Library not be stored on the same drive as the Time Machine backup.
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My Hard drive was failing and Best Buy replaced it with an SSD. My backup is on an external drive, of which I have three......I don't know "why" exactly. Backups on one and storage of extra photos, seldom accessed, on another, the third is blank. The photo library is not on the Backup hard drive. The file is called Photos.photolibrary, as far as I can tell.
I'm 85 yrs old and have no idea, but I think that it must be resident on my iMac or iCloud.
Photo restore
