User profile for user: Chislehurst
Chislehurst Author
User level: Level 1
10 points

Why is MacBook Pro Photos app stuck on "looking up location info"?

All photos in my Photo library now display "Looking up location info...". This is a fairly recent phenomenon - I would estimate that this has been happening for a few weeks now. The location on each photo is correct and photos are showing correct in the Map view. It's just that I am unable to move the red pin or alter the location. I CAN, however, Hide Location and enter a new one, but that results once again with "Looking up location info..." and I don't fancy doing this for all of my images. I have a 2024 MacBook Pro (48GB) with Sequoia 15.3.2. I have disabled and deleted my VPN (NordVPN), I have re-started in Safe Mode, I have repaired my Photos library and I have spent an hour on the phone to Apple Support - all to no avail. I'm advised that this might be fixed one day, in the fullness of time. But does anyone have a workaround? I have about 38,000 photos and videos, and use iCloud Photo Sharing. All photos on all other devices appear OK and their location may be adjusted if required.



[Re-Titled by Moderator]

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 15.3

Posted on Mar 29, 2025 3:52 PM

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User profile for user: Richard.Taylor
Richard.Taylor
User level: Level 7
23,410 points

Apr 30, 2025 9:38 AM in response to Chislehurst

Do you have your Photos Library on an external drive?


We have seen that, even when GPS is good, a Photos Library on an external drive may not be able to look up the location from Apple's database, as léonie described. Older pictures, where the location name has already been found, will usually still have their location names. But new pictures give the "Looking Up location info..." message.


Try making a new Library on your internal drive, and see if the location name is found.


If this external drive thing is the problem, I don't know of a fix. We know that Spotlight doesn't work inside a Photos Library on an external drive-- maybe this is connected. Who knows? But if that's what you're experiencing, then let us know, and let Apple know here:

Product Feedback - Apple


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User profile for user: yamoinca
yamoinca
User level: Level 1
9 points

Apr 30, 2025 9:31 AM in response to Chislehurst

This just happened to me. I am working on an album of family photos for an upcoming Celebration of Life and trying to add location and dates to old photos in OSX Photos on an Apple M1 Pro 16GB Sequoia 15.3.2. It is very cumbersome. I've gone through multiple rainbow spinners that never respond (logs sent in) and require a restart. That said I was making some slow progress last night. When I resumed this morning (after a fresh reboot), I modified the first photo without an issue. But when I updated the location on the second photo, while it initially "took" and showed the new location, when I then adjusted the date/time, that is when the location changed to "Looking up location info..." and now appears stuck.


I have a decade of photos invested in Apple system and it is failing miserably. There is no confidence that this system should be trusted with family memories, or frankly anything. Everything seems counterintuitive and always changing (eg photos management on iPhone). There is no excuse in this day and age for the program to hang and become completely unresponsive, that's just a massive failure on Apple's part wrt Design and Quality Assurance.


Not to mention that the Celebration of Life is approaching and I don't see how I can make it through all the photos with this type of behavior. Sad.

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Why is MacBook Pro Photos app stuck on "looking up location info"?

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