Accessing photos on external hard drive

SparklyGirl wrote:

external hard drive that was correctly formatted [...] Now when I try, the message "Unsupported Library. please upgrade Photos to open this library."

Make sure the external drive is formatted as APFS or MacOS Extended (GUID, case insensitive, Finder > Get Info > Ignore ownership on this volume flag ON for that volume).

Also don't use any 3rd party disk utilities unless really needed because they tend to break after macOS updates (so avoid installing Samsung etc disk utilities).

Also notice that if a newer macOS Photos has touched the Photos library, then the older macOS no longer can open it. A workaround is to use that newer macOS and route the image via iCloud Photos to the old macOS and let it download a fresh new library from iCloud Photos (might take a while depending on network speed and the number of images).

Also don't use any all 3rd party virus apps (Avast, AVG, Bitdefender, Intego, MacAfee, Norton, Sophos, Kaspersky, ESET NOD32, Trusteer, PC Matic etc) and 3rd party "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up" apps (CleanMyMac, Cleaner One, MacKeeper etc). They produce obscure errors and are not needed (MalwareBytes and AppCleaner are exceptions but should be used manually and cautiously).

I hope that helps. Photos forum is the best place to ask these kind of questions.

Re: “I think my photos are also stored in the cloud, but when I open Photos, there are only photos from 2023.”

Macs can have several Photos libraries, but only one of them (the “system” Photos library) can be synchronized with iCloud. When you are looking at one of the other (local) Photos libraries, you will not see the pictures that are in iCloud (or those that are in other local libraries, for that matter).

If you log into iCloud through the Web interface, you can see all of the photos that are in iCloud Photos in your Web browser, even if your Photos application is currently set to work with a different, local library.

are you using any of EasyStore's preloaded software on the drive (or installed such software yourself) that supposedly makes the drive "Mac ready"? if yes, that could be the cause of your issue. when you use software from just about any manufacturer for their storage device you run the risk of that same software not being compatible with macOS updates / upgrades. it can cause the software to stop working. at best this will cause you a headache. at worst it can render your data inaccessible. it is always best to use disk utility to erase and format a drive before use to remove any preloaded software.

if you are using such software, i think your options are somewhat limited. 

you may want to contact EasyStore and see if there is an update for their software.

alternatively, if you have a backup you can revert your macOS to the version of macOS that the drive was working on and transfer your data to another storage device and then erase and format the EasyStore device before putting it back into service.