Unsupported library and no update available

kalli wrote: … "The library “my.photoslibrary” is from a newer version of Photos. Please upgrade Photos to open this library. My iMac is up to date. There is no update possible. How can I recuperate rebuild my library on my iMac and recuperate my photos?

A newer Library has stuff that an older version of Photos just can't understand.

Do you still have access to the Sonoma Mac? If so, then you could get iCloud for a month, and connect to iCloud Photos from there. iCloud Photos is the only way to access a Photos Library from different versions of iPhotos. So once the Library is loaded to iCloud, you would be able to download the pictures to your Ventura Mac.

Beyond buying a new Mac (you'd be really impressed!) this is probably the best way to go.

In the worst case, after you make a backup copy of your Library, you can get unedited pictures out of it, but they would be totally unorganized, and the filenames would not be the same. We can help if you need to do that…

if your iMac is running macOS 13.7, it is well behind the current macOS 26.

A 27” iMac limited to running macOS 13 is a 2017 model, and iMac 2017 can’t get to the newer macOS versions necessary to access this Photos library.

If the iMac model is 2019 or later, it can be upgraded to macOS 14, and newer.

Your other options are to transfer the photos differently, or use a newer or new Mac. A Mac running macOS 14 or later should work here, obviously.

Identify an iMac: https://support.apple.com/en-us/108054

Is your iMac upgradeable to Sonoma? If not them the following may work:

If you get the free version of PowerPhotos you should be able to view the photos in the library and, I believe, export the originals with metadata.

If you get the paid version I believe you should be able to merge the Sonoma Photos library into the Ventura's library. PowerPhotos is probably the best utility for a Photos library out there. It can view the photos in ways that Photos can't, like lists of the following:

OK-- but use a backup of your Library. Messing around in the Library Package can render the database unusable.

The Photos Library, usually named Photos Library.photoslibrary, is usually found in the Pictures folder. The Library is a "package," a folder that is slightly protected-- it takes an extra step to open it and look inside. You can open a Library package by right-clicking the Library and choosing Show Library Contents. The insides might look like this:

The folders might be different depending on the OS, and there may be extra folders and files, but Ventura and Sonoma look about like this.

The "Originals" folder has the original picture files, but their names have all been changed. Since there might be several pictures named IMG_0123, for instance, all the file names have been changed to a 128 bit name like 39B2CD17-CDCF-4412-823F-6D48938D3D0E.jpg This is a GUID, a 128 bit global unique identifier. With 128 bits, there are 10³⁸ different possible names, so a random number generator is very very very (38 verys) unlikely to produce a duplicate name. Pretty cool.

So, you can retrieve all your Original Unmodified picture files, but you may have a time trying to get them into order. The metadata should be intact, though, so the dates will help a lot. But the dates in Finder are file dates, so they may mix up capture dates--you may not be able to rely on Finder dates for help.

I just tried this, and I imported the pictures from an Originals folder into Photos, and Photos correctly interpreted the capture date from the pictures' metadata. So pictures of similar events occurred together. So there may be no need at all for the original file name!

The Recources folder has Thumbnails and preview copies, all lower resolution than the originals. But if you did have some edits, these might show a bit of what was done. These do not have the comments, keywords, captions or titles that may have been added.

I don't know for sure. It can view libraries if the PowerPhotos version is new enough.

If it works it'll be faster and probably cheaper than going thru iCloud. If it doesn't you still got the best Photos library utility on the market.

I'm not sure either, OT. Whenever I try to launch the most recent version of PowerPhotos to open a Photos Library it will first try to open the library in Photos and not open the library, if Photos cannot open it.

iCloud Photos is a very good way to downgrade a library. And has the added bonus of an off-site storage plus an easy syncing with mobile devices.

OT-- this is a Sonoma Library to be opened on a Ventura machine which can't be upgrades. I believe that even PowerPhotos can't open a new Library on an older machine-- but that may not be true. Do you know for sure?