PhotoLibrary = 0 (zero) KB- Photo app will not open!

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Level 1

6 points

PhotoLibrary = 0 (zero) KB- Photo app will not open!

This has happened several times on my 2020 27" iMac (intel with SSD). The photo library either becomes corrupted or shows zero kb, or disappears entirely. I have tried rebuilding the library, moved the library to two different external drives, and luckily keep a backup. I had downloaded all photos to my hard drive before, but it happened to that one, also (although it magically rebuilt itself !?!?). I do use iCloud to hold photos, so I can always get them back by rebuilding a new library, but my question is why does this happen? It can't be because each and every sector of any drive I put the library is corrupt, I do not have any malware or virus, have protection on and file vault active. It would be nice to understand the action going on with this irritating goofiness. I am ready to download all photos by album and keep them out of Photo app permanently. Any technical answers would be appreciated.

iMac 27″, macOS 15.3

Posted on Mar 31, 2025 6:20 AM

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Answer 1

léonie

Level 10

203,511 points

Mar 31, 2025 6:54 AM in response to ProWorks

What kind of external drive are you using for your Photos Library?

Any external drive should be prepared as described here, if you want to store a Photos Library there: Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

And make sure the external drive will not be ejected, while Photos is running.

Have you been using any cleaning application to remove duplicates? Such programs can damage a Photos Library.

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

203,511 points

Mar 31, 2025 11:11 AM in response to ProWorks

Apple's own recommendation when moving the library to an external drive is to enable the "Ignore ownership on this volume" flag. Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

Is this flag set on the external drive? If not, you cannot access the library from two different user accounts. It will need repairing, whenever you open it from a different user account.

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Answer 3

Mar 31, 2025 8:01 AM in response to ProWorks

ProWorks wrote: … I do not have any malware or virus, have protection on and file vault active.

I'm suspicious of anti-virus programs, encryption, some VPNs, and any system-wide processes that may not respect Mac storage barriers. It seems to me that we've seen encrypted drive formats interfere with Photos Libraries. I'd try turning that stuff off for a while to see what happens.

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Answer 4

ProWorks Author

Level 1

6 points

Mar 31, 2025 9:31 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

I do not use anti-virus apps- I have two apps from Objective-See (Block-Block, LuLu) that watch for internet and communication issues running in the background. They've been on my machines for years, and this problem seems to have developed only since I upgraded to Sequoia (!?!?)- File Vault should not be an interference unless Apple is undermining its own software!

I have started to offload photos from the albums I have saved. My wife's pictures of former students is the bulk of our library (easily 30,000 of 55,000), so I've given her the task of saving important ones. My faith in Apple system environment is now gravely ill.

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Answer 5

ProWorks Author

Level 1

6 points

Mar 31, 2025 9:38 AM in response to léonie

Kingston, SanDisk, and Maxone drives from 500GB to 2TB. I backup via Carbon Copy Cloner to other drives for archiving (I do not trust any drive to be standalone backup). They are all APFS, not sharing any other process. I do not use cleaning apps for duplicates, I do any removal manually. Photo app has been duplicating alot lately, but I'm thinking it's part of this weirdness. This happened to tax software I recently used- the tax return disappeared two times after preparation. I'm not a spiritualist, but...

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PhotoLibrary = 0 (zero) KB- Photo app will not open!

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