photos library macOS 10.15.7 catalina maximum large number of photos & videos on large TB SSD

photos library on macOS 10.15.7 catalina maximum large number of photos & videos on large TB SSD

Runing fine on my 2012 MacBook Pro Retina.

I am merging about a dozen large photos librarys, about 1TB each with about 300,000 photos/videos each on my 8TB SSD boot drive.

Other than slow indexing are there limits to the number of photos/videos a single Apple photos library file can have?

I am not looking for solutions. I just want to know if there are limits before I start merging a bunch of photoslibrarys by draging one photoslibrary file over another or droping a diverse photoslibrary into an open library or using import from an open library.

Thanks for tips.

Earlier Mac models

Posted on Jul 12, 2024 10:59 AM

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2 replies

léonie

Level 10

200,903 points

Jul 12, 2024 2:13 PM in response to dgd

The Photos.app on macOS 10.15 Catalina is supposed to be able to open Aperture libraries, and Aperture could hold one million photos and videos. So Photos should be able to handle a Photos Library with a million items.

Other than that, I do not know of any documented limit. Photos is meant to be used with iCloud Photos, with the Photos Library synced across all your Apple devices. I would not let the library get larger than will fit onto your device with the least storage. I am keeping my Photos Library small enough to fit onto my iPhone with just 1TB of storage. On my Mac I noticed that Photos will become a bit slow, when I let the library grow beyond 250GB, also when the number of smart albums exceeds 200 smart albums.

Jul 12, 2024 11:15 AM in response to dgd

If I’m understanding your question correctly, the answer is yes. There is a limitation to how many photos/videos that can be stored on your iCloud Photos Library. That limitation is how much iCloud storage you have paid for.

Hope this helps!

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photos library macOS 10.15.7 catalina maximum large number of photos & videos on large TB SSD