My hard drive with system library for photos died

H i all my external Hd with my Photos system library died I managed to recover it with disk drill however, on the new drive its not my system library anymore

I'm getting a warning as you can see above

All my images are stored in the cloud everything is up to date.

How does this work will the warning wipe all the images on my photos app on my Mac and re download them again to the app?

I'm not sure how I should proceed.

Do I press ok to make it the new system library or is there another way I'm worried about losing images there are 33k worth on the cloud.

My head says im not deleting the cloud images if I press ok ,but I'm not sure how to proceed can someone explain how I make this recoverd library my system library

Thanks in advance

MacBook Pro 16″

Posted on Dec 14, 2024 8:28 AM

Top-ranking reply

Richard.Taylor

Level 7

23,338 points

Posted on Dec 14, 2024 10:01 AM

Are all your pictures that were in this affected Library already in iCloud Photos, right? If that's the case, I'd create a new Library (close Photos, option click the Photos icon, and choose Create New from the Library dialog:)

Then make the new empty one the System Library at Photo's Settings>General:

(Here, "Use as System Photos Library" is grayed out, because this one already is.)

Then connect this new empty System Library to iCloud with Photo's Settings>iCloud:

I always have "Download Originals" checked for my Mac, but you may need to choose "Optimize" if you don't have enough room.

Then wait for this new Library to download all your pictures. This probably takes a few days, but you will be sure that none of the files have been corrupted.

After you're sure you've gotten all your pictures, you can ditch the old one.

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My hard drive with system library for photos died

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