Photos Library is missing after recent Sonoma 14.6.1 update

After the recent Sonoma 14.6.1 update, my Photos Library is missing from my local Pictures folder (I suspect due to not enough disk space to perform the update). When I open the Mac Photos app, I get the error message "The library could not be opened. "Photos Library" is in iCloud Drive and needs to be moved to a folder on your Mac." And, sure enough, when I open my photos on my iPhone, all my photos are available and when I log into my iCloud account via Safari I can see my entire photos library. Now my question is: how do I move or download the photo library from iCloud back to my MacBook Pro? One similar question/response indicated that they found a Pictures folder under their iCloud Drive icon in Finder from which they could just drag the photo library back to the local Mac Pictures folder (sounds intuitive). I don't see any such Pictures folder listed under my iCloud Drive on the Mac nor in my iCloud Drive in Safari. The photo library is somewhere in my iCloud account, I just can't figure out where it is nor how to get the library back to my Mac.

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 14.6

Posted on Sep 27, 2024 8:05 AM

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Posted on Sep 28, 2024 10:05 AM

Thanks I found the file - it was hiding in the iCloud Drive/Documents/Photos folder. I think I had a momentary brain fault as it didn't occur to me to just use Finder and do a search for ".photoslibrary" and Finder located the file. Then just dragging it back to the local Pictures folder restored my library.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Sep 28, 2024 10:05 AM in response to markwmsn

Thanks I found the file - it was hiding in the iCloud Drive/Documents/Photos folder. I think I had a momentary brain fault as it didn't occur to me to just use Finder and do a search for ".photoslibrary" and Finder located the file. Then just dragging it back to the local Pictures folder restored my library.

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Photos Library is missing after recent Sonoma 14.6.1 update

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