iPhoto '11 so slow!!!

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Level 1

20 points

iPhoto '11 so slow!!!

iPhoto '11 is so slow that it has become useless. I've not even been able to try out any new features because iPhoto is too busy detecting faces, downloading facebook and flickr albums, spinning the beach ball, and not really sure what else it is doing, but for sure it is not letting me view my photos or do anything with them. I've had to force quit numerous times, and it's crashed a few times by itself. I really hope the programmers will concentrate on stability and performance in an update, or offer some guidelines on how many photos iPhoto can handle easily. Granted I have a large library but with the availability of 32GB SD cards, I am sure many people are going to start having to manage large libraries. Wondering if others with large libraries are having the same slowdown issues with iPhoto '11. Any known workarounds?

Posted on Oct 27, 2010 9:49 AM

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Answer 1

LarryHN

Level 10

106,110 points

Oct 27, 2010 10:13 AM in response to Rei

iPhoto '11 is so slow that it has become useless.

I've (and many other have) found '11 to be much faster

've not even been able to try out any new features because iPhoto is too busy detecting faces,

Let it finish - it is a one time thing

downloading facebook and flickr albums,

in the preferences set web syncing to manually so you control when it happens

spinning the beach ball, and not really sure what else it is doing, but for sure it is not letting me view my photos or do anything with them. I've had to force quit numerous times, and it's crashed a few times by itself.

Any of these could corrupt your library - try the above suggestions and let the system get stable before going on

I really hope the programmers will concentrate on stability and performance in an update, or offer some guidelines on how many photos iPhoto can handle easily. Granted I have a large library but with the availability of 32GB SD cards, I am sure many people are going to start having to manage large libraries. Wondering if others with large libraries are having the same slowdown issues with iPhoto '11. Any known workarounds?

I have 33018 photos, 218 videos and a 65GB library - not the biggest but pretty good sized - others here have reported much larger libraries - mine works great on a 27" iMac - I do have sharing, item counts and web syncing turned off in preferences

LN

LN

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Answer 2

Oct 27, 2010 4:23 PM in response to Rei

I've seen slowness in iPhoto '11 as well. I have a 103GB library on a Mac Pro 2006 with 11GB of RAM. iPhoto '09 was much faster than '11 is.

If I recall, when iPhoto '09 was released they also had some slowness issues at the start. Here's hoping for a .1 release to speed things up.

-Kevin

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Answer 3

LarryHN

Level 10

106,110 points

Oct 27, 2010 6:21 PM in response to netnothing

And have you tried the suggestions above?

LN

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Answer 4

Oct 27, 2010 7:06 PM in response to LarryHN

Yup....tried everything I know. Including a full rebuild of the database and all thumbnails. Sad part is 2 hours before installing '11, '09 worked fine. Same computer, same photos.

I'm not dead in the water like some people.....I just definitely see a slowdown in general with iPhoto '11.

-Kevin

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Answer 5

rimi

Level 1

0 points

Nov 7, 2010 5:56 PM in response to netnothing

Same here. iPhoto 11 feels much slower then iPhoto 09 on my iMac with 4Gb RAM. And, the king of slowness, is really Places. Also, why does iPhoto to MobileMe synchronization remains so slow and seems to always hang somewhere forever?

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Answer 6

Nov 12, 2010 4:45 PM in response to Rei

Same issue here. It seems that each time I add pictures, it takes a while to add and release the processing ... beachball spins ... and when I check the "Force Quit" dialog ...iPhoto is always reported as "(not responding)"

Plus there is no preference option for "Faces" (unless I missed it). Picasa at least gives you the option to select the folders to scan for Face detection ... so that if I know there's no people in this set of photos the app don't have to scan it.

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Answer 7

Nov 14, 2010 7:24 PM in response to Rei

Okay, I have to agree with Rei ... it's pretty much useless ...

when I ...
click on something ... beach ball
select a menu ... beach ball
import a folder ... beach ball
delete a photo ... beach ball
quit ... beach ball

I have to use this netbook since quiting still pinning the beach ball on my macbook

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Answer 8

Nov 14, 2010 8:59 PM in response to Raymund Evora

Totally agree. Slowest piece of Mac OS X software on my computer. Most awful upgrade I've seen from Apple in about 10 years.

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Answer 9

Nov 28, 2010 5:45 AM in response to Gerard James

I agree, iPhoto 11 is no good. I bought it specifically for the letter Press and every time i try to use it, it crashes (after having the beach ball for 5 minutes). I'm a new (and very disillusioned Mac user), whats all the fuss been about with non crashing mac vs pc???

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Answer 10

Dec 11, 2010 10:52 AM in response to LarryHN

thanks for posting, Larry.

i can't find where to turn web syncing to manual in iPhoto 9.1 preferences. i often have to force quit and i think this would help with that. your help is greatly appreciated.

-tim

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Answer 11

wim747

Level 1

0 points

Dec 12, 2010 3:01 AM in response to Rei

Indeed, same here no problems with iphoto 09 but after upgrade to iphoto 11 it takes forever to open, spinning wheel etc.
Wish I could go back to the old 09 😟

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Answer 12

Jan 9, 2011 7:56 PM in response to Rei

Has anybody found anything that works to speed up iPhoto 11. It is so slow it is really useless to me. I use to love this program. I tried everything suggested here and have had the program for several months now. Can't find the suggested "web synching" option in preferences that was mentioned as a possible fix. Please give us back a program that works.

MacBook Pro, plenty of memory, 7000 photographs

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Answer 13

Feb 2, 2011 10:34 PM in response to Greg Ness

wow i can't believe it ... my last post was Nov 14, 2010 and its now Feb. 3,, 2011 and we still have no solution. I tried it on a new iMac (iMac11 3 i5 3.6 GHz 4 GB ram) and it's still slow.

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Answer 14

MikeyF74

Level 1

10 points

Feb 3, 2011 1:46 AM in response to Rei

Hi!

I think iPhoto '11 is really great and I don't want to go back to '09.

But it is true - it's extreme slow! I have a MacBook Pro, bought end of 2009, Core 2 Duo, 2.53GHz and 4GB RAM. I think that should be good enough for iPhoto, but it isn't.

It is sad. I just started working with a Mac (switched from Windows) and now this. iPhoto was the main reason for me to switch to a Mac.

regards
michael

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Answer 15

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,308 points

Feb 3, 2011 2:38 AM in response to MikeyF74

As a Test:

Hold down the option (or alt) key key and launch iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Create Library'

Import a few pics into this new, blank library. Is the Problem repeated there?

Regards

TD

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