User profile for user: preetmins
preetmins Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

photos app hangs while indexing photos

I have round 29k photos and videos that I index to a photos library where all the photos are stored as a thumbnail and not inside the library. Whenever the photos library needs the photos, it accesses it via the folder where the photos are stored in orginal.


The problem is that the photos app hands often and often forgets where the photos came from. As i have around 5 folders in total where the individual original files are stored, i have to manually reference the folders sometimes again and again to tell the system where to look for.


Can anyone please help me understand how I can make this process fluent and error free?


Thanks in Advance for your effort and time!!

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 13.6

Posted on Dec 25, 2023 2:39 AM

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User profile for user: Richard.Taylor
Richard.Taylor
User level: Level 6
17,359 points

Posted on Dec 26, 2023 9:22 AM

You are probably one of only 5 people in the world who use Photos as a "referenced library." (This is an unofficial count.) Photos is notoriously bad at referenced libraries. My (personal) suggestion is to give it up and import all your pictures into the Photos Library. Or to several Libraries.


I have a Library for scans of my wife's family's old pictures and a separate library for my own family scans. I have a library for work pictures. I have a library for copies of my favorites that gets synced with my iPhone and iPad. And more. But all of those scans, iPhone pictures, and digital camera files also exist in Finder folders as original backups.


There are 3rd Party apps (read "expensive") which you could use to handle a referenced library which apparently work way better at that, but I've had no experience with them. Picture organization is pretty darn good in Photos, and the editor is really terrific, especially with help from an extra app or two. But it may be worth your while to check out Adobe Lightroom, for instance.

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User profile for user: Richard.Taylor
Richard.Taylor
User level: Level 6
17,359 points

Dec 26, 2023 9:22 AM in response to preetmins

You are probably one of only 5 people in the world who use Photos as a "referenced library." (This is an unofficial count.) Photos is notoriously bad at referenced libraries. My (personal) suggestion is to give it up and import all your pictures into the Photos Library. Or to several Libraries.


I have a Library for scans of my wife's family's old pictures and a separate library for my own family scans. I have a library for work pictures. I have a library for copies of my favorites that gets synced with my iPhone and iPad. And more. But all of those scans, iPhone pictures, and digital camera files also exist in Finder folders as original backups.


There are 3rd Party apps (read "expensive") which you could use to handle a referenced library which apparently work way better at that, but I've had no experience with them. Picture organization is pretty darn good in Photos, and the editor is really terrific, especially with help from an extra app or two. But it may be worth your while to check out Adobe Lightroom, for instance.

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photos app hangs while indexing photos

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