PaulAvery
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Q: Photos library size even with unchecked "Copy items to Photos library"

Even with the "Copy items to Photos library" option unchecked, importing a folder of 10.07GB results in a library of 10.01GB. The originals are 22MP photos. There's no way that the thumbnail being created is 22MP causing equal library size!

 

What could possibly cause such a large library size if the images aren't being

Posted on Apr 17, 2015 11:23 AM

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PaulAvery

Q: Photos library size even with unchecked "Copy items to Photos library"

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  • by Old Toad,

    Old Toad Old Toad Apr 17, 2015 11:27 AM in response to PaulAvery
    Level 10 (141,748 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Apr 17, 2015 11:27 AM in response to PaulAvery

    Photos uses hard like to the photos that are imported as referenced files and so the Finder reports the size as if they were imported.

    OTsig.png

  • by PaulAvery,

    PaulAvery PaulAvery Apr 17, 2015 11:29 AM in response to Old Toad
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 17, 2015 11:29 AM in response to Old Toad

    But the photos imported are on an external disk and now my primary drive is registering that the 10GB is being consumed on both disks.

  • by PaulAvery,

    PaulAvery PaulAvery Apr 17, 2015 11:31 AM in response to Old Toad
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 17, 2015 11:31 AM in response to Old Toad

    I should also add that if you explore the actual library, it's the folder "resources" taking up >6GB of data. Not even the previews or thumbnails folders are near that.

  • by PdN2504,

    PdN2504 PdN2504 Apr 19, 2015 1:20 AM in response to PaulAvery
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apr 19, 2015 1:20 AM in response to PaulAvery

    Same situation here.

    iPhoto library size was about 32GB. All referenced files

    Migrated Photos library size 113GB!!

    "Copy items to Photos library" option unchecked.

    Available space on "Macintosh HD" decreased with the same amount.

    A lot of data seems to be copied to ....../Photos Library.photoslibrary/resources/modelresources (95GB)

  • by nickjstevens,

    nickjstevens nickjstevens Apr 19, 2015 2:21 AM in response to PaulAvery
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 19, 2015 2:21 AM in response to PaulAvery

    Same with me too. I migrated from Aperture where all my photos were "referenced" on an external hard drive. Now with the new Photos I'm getting >100Gb stored locally in the modelresources folder, which looks to be something to do with Faces, because lots of the images are duplicates but cropped...

     

    My entire photo library on the external drive is 250Gb, so to have 100Gb effectively duplicated locally is a real pain when I don't have much disk space and I'm purposely trying to store all photos externally (unselecting the "copy to items to photos library" etc).

     

    I don't even use Faces. I'm wondering what would happen if I deleted the files within the modelresources folder???

     

    Hopefully someone might have a helpful fix to address this problem.

  • by MacRainer,

    MacRainer MacRainer Apr 19, 2015 12:12 PM in response to nickjstevens
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 19, 2015 12:12 PM in response to nickjstevens

    I have exactly the same problem! Migrated from Aperture library. Masters are on an external disk (in my case: QNAP NAS).

     

    • Masters ~ 90 GB (on NAS)
    • Aperture library was about 20 GB
    • Photos for OS X library is about 55 GB (!!!) ... and about 40 GB in the resources folder inside the package !

     

    I hope that Apple will fix this!!

  • by richtong,

    richtong richtong Apr 19, 2015 11:45 PM in response to MacRainer
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 19, 2015 11:45 PM in response to MacRainer

    Same issue here, my 400GB collection of JPEGS even unchecked has 250GB of additional storage. Of this most is in a directory called modelresource that appears to be for the Faces feature. it is storing some thumbnails, but the problem are huge photos of general scenes. Help!

  • by ink176,

    ink176 ink176 May 1, 2015 6:42 AM in response to PaulAvery
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 1, 2015 6:42 AM in response to PaulAvery

    I have the same issue, but with even more staggering results: I have 71GB of photos and my unlinked (ie "copy items to Photos library" unchecked) photo library is 70GB! When I view the contents of my photo library, every folder is a minimal size except for the "Resources" folder. Within that folder, the main space-hogging culprit is the "modelresources" folder which is almost 60GB! (This folder contains an assortment of numbered folders containing numbered folders containing folders with long strings of numbers/letters which each themselves contain one seemingly random photo.)

     

    My final attempt to fix this, or at least discover the issue, was creating an entirely new photo library, this time checking the "copy items to Photos library" box. I wanted to know if the issue was due to the linking or if the Photos library is destined to be huge no matter what. Guess what? My new photos library, with all of the masters included, is only 80GB! The resources folder is under 2GB (most of this, again, is from the "modelresources" folder)! (Aside: Photos couldn't import 300 photos out of 30,000+, not sure why. Second aside: I store my main photos library on an external hard drive, and that has always worked fine with Photos/iPhotos.)

     

    Bottom line seems to be that linking photos to Photos doesn't save space, because it uses up just as many GB in resources trying to link them.

  • by Old Toad,

    Old Toad Old Toad May 1, 2015 8:56 AM in response to ink176
    Level 10 (141,748 points)
    Photos for Mac
    May 1, 2015 8:56 AM in response to ink176

    This was the first article posted about the hard links after Photos.

     

    The (hard) link between Photos and iPhoto

     

    Then Apple released this:

     

    Photos saves disk space by sharing images with your iPhoto or Aperture libraries - Apple Support