I recently downgraded my Intel iMac (2019) from Sonoma back to Ventura. It’s much more stable and doesn’t require me to zap the P-RAM every other day. Unfortunately, Photos doesn’t work. I still have the raw files, but I’ve lost 20 years of albums. Any suggestions how to restore them without rebuilding them from scratch?
iMac 27″, macOS 13.7
The Photos.app on Ventura cannot work with a Photos Library that has been upgraded to a newer system version. Do you still have a backup your Photos Library from the time before you upgraded to Sonoma? if yes, you could start from that backup copy to save your albums and need only to reimport the missing photos you added after the Sonoma upgrade.
But if you have been using iCloud Photos and your Photos library is already in iCloud, downloading a fresh copy by syncing with a new, empty Photos Library as recommended by Yer_Man will be your best option. When we are using iCloud Photos, and we have to enable iCloud Photos again for our Photos Library after iCloud got disabled because we had to restore our Mac, it is much slower to enable iCloud Photos for the existing library than to start over with a new library. Enabling iCloud Photos for a large, existing library will cause a new upload into iCloud, which may take several days or even more than a week to complete. Just downloading to a new, empty library will be much faster.
The Photos.app on Ventura cannot work with a Photos Library that has been upgraded to a newer system version. Do you still have a backup your Photos Library from the time before you upgraded to Sonoma? if yes, you could start from that backup copy to save your albums and need only to reimport the missing photos you added after the Sonoma upgrade.
But if you have been using iCloud Photos and your Photos library is already in iCloud, downloading a fresh copy by syncing with a new, empty Photos Library as recommended by Yer_Man will be your best option. When we are using iCloud Photos, and we have to enable iCloud Photos again for our Photos Library after iCloud got disabled because we had to restore our Mac, it is much slower to enable iCloud Photos for the existing library than to start over with a new library. Enabling iCloud Photos for a large, existing library will cause a new upload into iCloud, which may take several days or even more than a week to complete. Just downloading to a new, empty library will be much faster.
the classic library compatibility issue when downgrading macOS versions. Here's what I'd suggest:
Pro tip: In the future, always export an XML backup (File > Export) before major OS changes!
Then it would be worth a try with your Time Machine backup. I would restore just the library from a date, when you had still Ventura running on your Mac(don't overwrite your current library, you may need it).
Good Luck.
Create a new library and let it sync with the iCloud Photo Library.
Could you go forward to macOS 15 Sequoia instead of backward to macOS Ventura? Is you iMac compatible? How to upgrade to macOS Sequoia - Apple Support. My MacBook Pro from 2019 is running more stable on macOS 15 than on macOS 14.
It would save you a lot of work, if you could get your Photos Library into iCloud, at least for a short time, so you can downgrade again, if need be.
As OT says (and I said more or less the same earlier,) if you have a problem with Sonoma, you may have a bigger problem with Ventura. You need to address that.
As to your question: Photos uses iCloud to make all the Libraries connected it exactly the same. That's what synchronize means. It will make the Mac's Library the same as the iCloud Library, and it will make the iCloud Library the same as the Mac Library. That means it only adds pictures to Libraries-- it doesn't remove pictures.
So if you connect a "new" Mac with iCloud Photos, it will copy all the pictures from the Mac to iCloud, and then copy all the pictures from iCloud to the Mac. It does its best to avoid duplicates.
I found Sonomo and Sequoia ground to a halt if the iMac was left on overnight. They could barely even render the background photo. Resetting the PRAM seemed to resolve this. For a while, I just made sure I shut it down when it wasn't in use, but that's not a long term solution. Since going back to Ventura I've restored all my Photos from iCloud and it seems to be much happier. I do have a 2022 MacBook Air, but it doesn't have enough storage space for all my files. I have about 800GB of data accrued over a 25 year career in graphics. I should probably have a spring clean.
After my experiences with Somoma, I'm nervous about upgrading to Sequoia. I've been using iMacs for over 25 years and I would buy a new one if they released a model with some guts. The highest spec Silicon iMac on the market only has 32GB RAM, which is half what my 2019 Intel iMac is packing.
It might be better to address the issues that made Sonoma throw tantrums on your iMac, rather than going backward. In many cases early releases of OSs have had glitches from their many new features, but those are fixed as user experience expands. Most experienced users don't have problems with Sonoma or Sequoia-- I can't remember that last time I reset the PRAM on my Mac. It may be that you can now re-install Sonoma with more success.
I’ve gone back up to Sequoia now, so my Photos have been sorted. If I leave my Intel iMac on overnight I still need to zap the PRAM. It’s not as pronounced as it was in Sonoma, but the issue still persists. I just have to make sure I always shut it down when not in use.
baggafluff wrote:
After my experiences with Somoma, I'm nervous about upgrading to Sequoia. I've been using iMacs for over 25 years and I would buy a new one if they released a model with some guts. The highest spec Silicon iMac on the market only has 32GB RAM, which is half what my 2019 Intel iMac is packing.
Apple discontinued the 27" (high-end) iMacs when they switched from Intel to Apple Silicon. The 24" iMacs are basically the successors to the 21.5" ones.
If you need something higher-end, you could look at a M4 Pro Mac mini (available with up to 64 GB of RAM) or a M4 Max Mac Studio (available with up to 128 GB of RAM.)
Thanks for the advice. It would cost me about £4,000 for a similar spec to my current 6-year old iMac (64GB RAM, 2TB SSD, 27” 5K screen).
Unfortunately, I’m not in a position to spend that much money atm, especially as my graphic design career has now become my side hustle.
I've been championing Apple since I bought my first Mac (7200/90) with my entire 2nd year loan at Uni, but I’m going off them fast.
Apple products have become toys for people with more money than sense and are no longer practical for people trying to survive in creative industries.
baggafluff wrote: … Apple products have become toys for people with more money than sense and are no longer practical for people trying to survive in creative industries.
Man, I have to agree with you about not wanting (or needing) to buy a new computer every all the time!
I would say that, for me, Macs have great versatility, quality, and stability. And support. It is true that right now AI is getting lots of attention, and that seems to add a lot of flaky and silly distractions, but that always happens. We were playing pong-like games on Apple //s when VisiCalc came along and changed everything. We'll have to wait and see…
Update: I upgraded to Sequoia, increased my iCloud storage and backed all my photos up to iCloud. I've now gone back to Ventura and would like to download all the photos from iCloud to my hard drive, but I'm nervous of getting it wrong. If I turn on 'Photos' in my iCloud settings, will this sync the photos held on iCloud with the library on my hard drive or will it overwrite the iCloud with the wrong library on my hard drive? Scared!
Have you tried to determine why you're having problems with Sonoma?
Have you installed and run any "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus or VPN apps on your Mac?
Where is your library located? If on an external drive how is that drive formatted?
How much free space do you have on your boot drive?
How to restore photos after downgrading from Sonoma to Ventura?
