Option click Photos app does not bring up dialogue to select library

Hi,

I noticed the same problem with Photos, also when trying to open iTunes. I use a Logitech wireless Keyboard with USB Unifyer Adapter normally.

As the use of the Option (Alt Key) should be a standard procedure I took out the old Bluetooth Apple Keyboard, put in some batteries and connected it to my MacPro (Sierra 10.12.6) and the Option Key did the trick when opening Photos or iTunes and let me create alternative Libraries.

Rgds Harry

Keep holding down the options key ⌥ while photos launches until you are seeing the library chooser panel.

You can also simply drag the library you want to open to the Photos icon in the Dock to open it in Photos.

What is the format of your external drive?

If you want to open an iPhoto Library in Photos the library must not be on a drive that is used by Time Machine, and the file system should be MacOS Extended (Journaled).

Thanks, the trick is to keep the 'alt' (options) key pressed down until the dialog appears.

Jim:

If Photos is closed another way to open a different library is to do is double click on the library file you want to open. If Photos is open you'll get this Switch Libraries window:

It most certainly does, you may be pressing the wrong key.

A nice new avatar, Winston Churchill 🙂 I barely recognized you!

It's a temporary experiment, but it's still me, one probably won't recognise the significance unless one is from the UK. 😉

I'm not sure it matters where your other libraries are at the moment, even if you don't have any the option key should be opening a dialogue box for you not the application.

Are you sure you are keeping it held down.

What do you see when you open your keyboard viewer.

This is my keyboard viewer

The option key on my Apply keyboard says "option" and in the top left corner says "alt".

It will look differently in different countries. If the label is "alt" or "opt", it should be fine.

Photos still opens with the default library and a dialogue box pops up titled "Nothing to import" with the message "None of these files can be imported into your Photos library."

Photos does not recognize your iPhoto Libraries as photo libraries. What does the icon of these libraries look like? You should be able to open the libraries, where the filename extension is ".photolibrary". That will be the original iPhoto Libraries.

Does the icon look like a fan of pictures with a pink flower?

My iPhotos libraries are on a separate external hard drive than the one I use for Time Machine.

Is the file system on this disk "MacOS Extended (Journaled)"?

Winston Churchill wrote:

It's a temporary experiment, but it's still me, one probably won't recognise the significance unless one is from the UK. 😉

It doesn't look at bit like Rufus. Looks more like Winnie himself. 😁

Is your system drive also formatted "Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)"? If the external drive is case sensitive and the internal drive not, you are risking filename errors.

But I doubt, that this is causing the current problem.

Have you looked into the "recovered photos" folders? Is there anything interesting to note about the files inside? Are there only a few photos or many of them? Do the filenames differ only in upper case and lower case letters?