HT204655: Updating from iPhoto to Photos for OS X

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Terry Mosher
Level 1 (10 points)

Q: Photos locks up when trying to delete Keywords using the Keyword Manager

Trying to clean up keywords in a very large Photos library that I imported from Aperature.  >50,000 pictures.  On my 27" iMac, i7, with 32GB of RAM and a 3TB fusion drive.

 

I open the Keyword Manager.  Click on Edit Keywords.  When I see one I want to delete, I click the "-" button.  I get a warning if there are pictures with that keyword.  In the two cases where I had 11,000 and then 13,000 pictures with that keyword applied, the app beachballed, and Activity Manager said "Not Responding".  Waited an hour - no change.  Force Quit and now I'm repairing the library.

 

Frustrating.

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

Posted on Apr 26, 2015 1:03 PM

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Terry Mosher

Q: Photos locks up when trying to delete Keywords using the Keyword Manager

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  • Helpful answers

  • by léonie,Helpful

    léonie léonie Apr 27, 2015 1:46 PM in response to Terry Mosher
    Level 10 (108,955 points)
    iCloud
    Apr 27, 2015 1:46 PM in response to Terry Mosher

    You could try to delete the keywords by removing them first from the photos.

    Create a smart album with the the rule "keyword is ....". The smart album will contain all photos with the keyword. Then select a smaller subset of the photos in the smart album and open the info panel. Delete the keyword from the panel.

    Once you deleted the keyword from all photos in the Smart album, it will be gone from the Keyword Manager.

     

    Perhaps one photo has a corrupted keyword tag. Try to identify the photo, where the keyword cannot be removed.

  • by Terry Mosher,

    Terry Mosher Terry Mosher Apr 26, 2015 1:23 PM in response to léonie
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Apr 26, 2015 1:23 PM in response to léonie

    Thanks.  I can save a couple of steps and just search the library for that keyword, select the Show Info window, select all pictures and delete the keyword.  Many more steps than just deleting from the Keyword Manager, but if that's what I have to do, I guess I'll resort to that.

     

    The only thing here that won't work the way you describe is that even after you remove the keyword from all pictures, the keyword stays in the Keyword Manager's list of keywords.

  • by R C-R,Helpful

    R C-R R C-R Apr 27, 2015 1:45 PM in response to Terry Mosher
    Level 6 (17,700 points)
    Apr 27, 2015 1:45 PM in response to Terry Mosher

    It can take a very long time for Photos' Keyword Manager to remove a keyword, particularly when a large number of photos use it. On a test library of only about a thousand files, it took several minutes just to remove a keyword used by only a few of them, so I suggest letting this run overnight to see if it works on your large library.

     

    Also, I have noticed a few times that the OS indicated Photos was not responding when it had not actually hung. I don't know what that's about but unless Activity Monitor shows no CPU activity in Photos for 5-10 minutes, I would not assume it really is.