Q: Can't repair Photos library. How best to restore from iCloud library?
The System Photo Library has become corrupt, and cannot be repaired.
It says "Photos has attempted to repair the library 'Photos Library 2015', but is unable to open it."
I first experienced problems with this library a week ago, and at the time I was able to repair and open the library successfully, but it was missing a months worth of photos.
Given that these were successfully in the iCloud library, I left it to re-sync - but this process repeatedly hung before completion, and now the System Photo Library seems to be irretrievably corrupt.
I have no faces tagged or print projects in the System Photo Library, so I would be happy simply to restore from iCloud.
My plan is to set up a new - empty - Photo Library, and then designate this the System Photo Library.
If I understand this right, the new (empty) System Photo Library will now resync with iCloud, and will copy the entire contents of this library back to my Mac.
Is this correct? Is this the most efficient way to restore my library?
And while I'm here - what's the best way to manage a very large library? I've had my photo library become corrupt three or four times over the last decade, and have found it necessary to split it into single years to prevent this. I neglected this piece of housekeeping at the end of 2015, and now it's happened again… Surely there must be an easier way to handle multi-year image libraries?
Posted on Sep 18, 2016 4:09 AM