I am trying to backup my photos library from my macbook to an external drive. The copy starts fine however after a period of time I get a message that the copy can not be completed because there is an error in the library. The library opens and works fine it just wont copy.
MacBook Pro (2017 – 2020)
How is your external drive formatted? To avoid damaging the Photos Library an external drive must be formatted in either APFS format or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. Additionally, the drive can not have had Time Machine on it since it was formatted. There have been so many problems with using incompatible drives that the newest macOSs won't even allow a Library on a non-Mac formatted drive to open, since there is a chance of damaging the Photos database. See this:
Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support
You may also need to check the permissions-- it should have "ignore ownership" checked (or not have that checkbox at all.
Let us know if that helps, or we need to look harder...
How is your external drive formatted? To avoid damaging the Photos Library an external drive must be formatted in either APFS format or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. Additionally, the drive can not have had Time Machine on it since it was formatted. There have been so many problems with using incompatible drives that the newest macOSs won't even allow a Library on a non-Mac formatted drive to open, since there is a chance of damaging the Photos database. See this:
Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support
You may also need to check the permissions-- it should have "ignore ownership" checked (or not have that checkbox at all.
Let us know if that helps, or we need to look harder...
Most Simple Back Up:
Make sure the disk is formatted Mac OS X Extended, Journaled
Drag the Photos Library from your Pictures Folder to another Disk. This will make a copy on that disk.
Slightly more complex: Use an app that will do incremental back ups. This is a very good way to work. The first time you run the back up the app will make a complete copy of the Library. Thereafter it will update the back up with the changes you have made. That makes subsequent back ups much faster. Many of these apps also have scheduling capabilities: So set it up and it will do the back up automatically.
Example of such apps: Chronosync - but there are many others. Search on the App Store
vancorbachp wrote: I formatted the drive with the macbook pro in the default format
Double check by selecting the drive in the Finder Sidebar or the Desktop, and open the Info window with command-i, like this:
What is the default format? There are several of them. Which did you use?
In Photos
Highlight the photos you want to export.
Goto File>Export. I lists a few Options
I formatted the drive with the macbook pro in the default format and then tried to copy the library to the drive. So I am sure it did not have time machine on it and I am pretty sure the format was correct.
Don't really want to export the thousands of photos my wife has in the library. Would just like to get a backup of the library on an external drive.
backing up photos library to external drive
