Mac Photos app ridiculously slow to open, update, delete, open photos

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Mac Photos app ridiculously slow to open, update, delete, open photos

When I try to open a photo in the Photos app on my M1 Macbook Pro, it hangs indefinitely loading the full-res version from iCloud, even though I have a stable internet connection. When I try to open one of the other tabs (i.e. People & Pets) from the sidebar after opening the app, it hangs with the spinning wheel for several minutes before opening the tab. When I try to delete an app, this popup comes up and... hangs indefinitely. If I force quit the app while the app is hanging and try to re-open, it sometimes re-opens immediately and sometimes takes several minutes to open. The app has also not synced my most recent photos, despite saying that it is synced at the bottom of my library.

I've seen others have similar issues when storing their photos on an external drive, but my photos are stored on iCloud.

This behavior has been happening for a few months now, I'm not sure if it's an issue with Sonoma or what but the Photos app on Mac is basically unusable for me because of these issues.

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 14.0

Posted on May 7, 2024 4:43 PM

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Answer 1

May 8, 2024 8:43 AM in response to ryanvmiller

ryanvmiller wrote: I've seen others have similar issues when storing their photos on an external drive, but my photos are stored on iCloud.

Every device using Photos must have a local Photos Library located on a drive that is connected by wire. The Library can't work on a network drive, on a cloud drive, or over wifi. iCloud drive will not work as a place to keep your Photos Library. So what's going on, really?

I set up a test library and "moved" it to iCloud Drive. When I look at the list of files there, I see this:

The little cloud with a line through it means that it's not in iCloud! What does yours look like?

It's somewhere!

When I search (not with Spotlight or Finder) I find it in my Users Library in Mobile Documents

If you find it, try dragging it to the Pictures folder and double clicking on it. (Actually, you can just drag it from "iCloud Drive" to Pictures. I just thought you'd like to know where it went...) See if it works.

I'm guessing a bit, of course, because I'm not looking at your computer. So let us know how it goes.

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