Syncing photos

I haven't experienced this--very weird! Could you let us know these things?

What macOS or you using? 13, 14, 15, or what?

1. 1. Do you have “Optimize Storage” checked in Photos’ Settings
   2. Where does your Photos Library reside-- in the Pictures folder of your internal drive, or on an external drive? or on a network? on iCloud drive?
   3. What percentage of your Mac's storage is free?
   4. What percentage of your iCloud storage is free?

In the mean time, try these things:

• Restart the computer (of course)
• Re-start in Safe Mode. This bypasses certain potentially disruptive processes. Safe Mode is different for different computers, so see this:

Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support 

• Make a new user and see if the same problem recurs with it
• Use another library if you have one, or make a small test Library with a few pictures in it and see if the same thing happens. You can create a new Library by closing Photos and then option-clicking on the Photos icon.
• Rebuild your Photos Library--close Photos and re-launch by option-command-clicking the app icon.

The idea is to find out if the problem is with the Library, with your account, or with caches and login items, and stuff like that. One of these steps may fix the problem, but their failure to work also helps figure out what's happening.

2-- the Library can be in other folders or on an external drive. It cannot be in iCloud Drive or on a Network.

Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

3-- big problem. Apple insists that at least 10% of your hard drive be free. I have found that 20% is better. That's your biggest problem, and it affects everything. You need 20 GB of free space before you can see if anything else is a problem. I keep my Photos Library on my internal drive, because the Library shouldn't be connected and disconnected -- it messes up background operations. To keep the room I need on my MacBook, I put stuff on a tiny (like 1 ounce) SSD that I carry around.

wrote: I don’t really understand how the photo library on the internal drive of my MacBook relates to what I see in the Photos app on my iPhone and iPad, and what is in iCloud. Are you able to explain that please?

Using iCloud Photos ensures that all the pictures in iCloud.com and in all the Photos Libraries of all the connected devices are exactly the same. If you take a picture on your connected iPhone, it will be copied to iCloud.com and then copied to all the devices. If you import a picture from a friend's text into Photos on a Mac, then that will be copied to iCloud.com and then to all the devices. If you delete a picture on your iPad, then it will be deleted at iCloud.com and then deleted from all your devices. All the pictures in iCloud.com and in all the Photos Libraries of all the connected devices will be made to be exactly the same.

That's why you can't think of iCloud as a simple backup-- if you mistakenly delete a picture from one device, it's erased everywhere. That's also why you get 30 days of Recently Deleted to change your mind.

… What issues are involved in setting up a new user?

Another user gets its own set of folders like Music, Pictures, Documents, Desktop, etc, that are completely independent of the the others. One user doesn't have access to the Photos Library, for instance, of another user. Anything in a folder in my user's folder,

Macintosh HD/Users/rtaylor/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary

is visible only to me, and stuff in another user's folder in not accessible to me.

However, if I have files that I want to be available to all users, I can put them in

Macintosh HD/Users/rtaylor/Public/

and others can see them. Or I could make a new folder, that I might call Everyone, in the Macintosh folder,

Macintosh HD/Everyone/

and, since it's not in a particular user's folder, it would be available to everyone.

A Photos Library will work in the Public folder or in the Everyone folder. (But it will not work in the iCloud Drive folder.)

You can see some detail about setup here:

Add a user or group on Mac - Apple Support

I don’t have another photo library so would need to set one up. Would that then replace the old one, and if so, how would I get my old one back?

Macs (not iPhones or iPads) can have multiple Libraries. You can just double click on the Library you want and that's the one that will open in Photos. And, of course, other users can have their own Photos Libraries.

Only one Library can be designated the System Library, and that's the only Library that can connect to iCloud. This is done in Photos>Settings>General.

My "Use as System Photos Library" is grayed out, because it already is.

I think I’ve looked at rebuilding my photo library. If I remember correctly it said it would delete all my photos from the device before rebuilding it. Is that correct?

No. But it is absolutely advisable to have a backup copy of your Photos Library on an external drive just in case something crazy happens. That should be the first thing you do before anything else. Pictures are precious! I have two Time Machine backups and another Drive just for copies of my Photos Libraries!

Peterlg wrote: My photo library is only 1.67 GB

My iCloud Photos Library is about 100 GB.

iCloud Drive. Can I put this on an external drive

No. But in Sonoma you can choose designate some files to be kept at iCloud and not normally kept on the Mac. You can also designate some files to never be removed from your local folder.

Peterlg wrote: … I don’t see any other way to free up the amount of space you’re suggesting.

The fact is, if you want lots of stuff, then you have to have a place to put it all. (Sounds like a conversation with my wife….) If it doesn't fit on your Mac's internal drive, then you need an external drive. You can use an external hard drive for your lesser used files, as I suggested earlier.

You won't be able to upgrade your OS until you get some room. If you can eventually upgrade to Sonoma, you can offload files to iCloud:

This is a pop-up menu from Sonoma that gives the option to remove this file from the local drive but keep it at iCloud.

Honestly, I gave up paying much attention to the details in those storage graphs. I think that when counting files, they are forced to plop them into specific pre-determined bins, and some files might be a bit ambiguous. Some apps contain data. And, after all, aren't some pictures sort of documents? Do thumbnails and previews count as pictures, or are they system things? How about icons and logos? How many things get counted twice or not at all?

The numbers just aren't precise, "They're more like guidelines, anyway."

But your real problem, as before, is that your storage if full everywhere; still 7%, and as we talked about, Apple recommends at least 10% of the hard drive storage remain free. In iCloud you have 20% free, which is also getting to be dangerously crowded. I feel like I'm repeating myself, but you're going to feel grief until that's all fixed. And the only way out may be to use an external hard drive.