I switched to an old library and photos immediately said it was updating and I could not stop it. Now I cannot find the original library anywhere! I was not using iCloud. Help! I have so many great photos I need!
iMac 27″, macOS 10.15
JYers wrote: I switched to an old library and photos immediately said it was updating and I could not stop it. Now I cannot find the original library anywhere! I was not using iCloud. Help! I have so many great photos I need!
Do you mean by "original Library" the Library that you switched from before you opened the old Library? If you close Photos and then option-click on the Photos icon, you get a dialog window like this:
That shows all the Libraries that Photos is aware of. Just below the list, it shows the path to any Library that you pick. You can also use this dialog to switch between Libraries.
If somehow Photos has lost track of that Library, then you can hunt for it with Finder:
You put ".photoslibrary" in the search field. It will show the path for each one that you select.
You may also want to look in the trash-- you never know.
Or by "original Library" do you mean the old Library before it was updated? Once a Library is updated, it is changed forever, and you can't go back. A mac using a previous Operating System can't read a Library upgraded to a newer system.
However, any OS can read iCloud, so, if you have a Library that's upgraded and you want to see pictures on an earlier system, you can use a newer Photos to load it and to sync with iCloud. Then on the older system, connecting with iCloud will sync it with all your pictures there. You'd have t pay for a month of iCloud to do this, but a month is cheap.
Let us know what you do and what works or not...
JYers wrote: I switched to an old library and photos immediately said it was updating and I could not stop it. Now I cannot find the original library anywhere! I was not using iCloud. Help! I have so many great photos I need!
Do you mean by "original Library" the Library that you switched from before you opened the old Library? If you close Photos and then option-click on the Photos icon, you get a dialog window like this:
That shows all the Libraries that Photos is aware of. Just below the list, it shows the path to any Library that you pick. You can also use this dialog to switch between Libraries.
If somehow Photos has lost track of that Library, then you can hunt for it with Finder:
You put ".photoslibrary" in the search field. It will show the path for each one that you select.
You may also want to look in the trash-- you never know.
Or by "original Library" do you mean the old Library before it was updated? Once a Library is updated, it is changed forever, and you can't go back. A mac using a previous Operating System can't read a Library upgraded to a newer system.
However, any OS can read iCloud, so, if you have a Library that's upgraded and you want to see pictures on an earlier system, you can use a newer Photos to load it and to sync with iCloud. Then on the older system, connecting with iCloud will sync it with all your pictures there. You'd have t pay for a month of iCloud to do this, but a month is cheap.
Let us know what you do and what works or not...
Do you remember, where your original library had been stored? by default the Photos Library will begin your Pictures folder.
Or did you keep it on an external drive?
Can't find my photos library after switching to an old library
