Ignore "already imported" when importing

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Level 1

12 points

Ignore "already imported" when importing

I had previously imported 6000 photos to Photos that were stored on an external drive. The photos were not consolidated - meaning the actual files were only located on the external drive, the Photos app only had a link to their location.

Then the external drive died. This was expected, and I have other copies of the 6000 photos. So I removed the 6000 photos from the Photos app, and tried to import them from the new location.

Guess what? Photos is rejecting all 6000 photos because they were "already imported".

What can I do? Is there any way to tell Photos to import the photos even though it thinks they were already imported. (I know this is the opposite problem most people are having with already imported photos.)

Posted on Nov 2, 2018 1:41 PM

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Answer 1

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Geoff1234 Author

Level 1

12 points

Nov 2, 2018 1:52 PM in response to Geoff1234

OK, answering my own question. Thanks to anybody who read this.

The import process reviews all photos that you are attempting to import, and displays new photos and photos that were already imported. You can press a button to import all new photos, or select any of the photos individually and import the selected photos. You are permitted to include any of the already imported photos in your selection, which would result in duplicates if the photos are already in the library, or in my case, allows me to import the photos that had previously been deleted.

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

194,871 points

Nov 3, 2018 3:59 AM in response to Geoff1234

You should also have been able to import the photos again, if you deleted the versions with the broken references from your Photos Library and emptied the "recently Deleted" album. With the previously imported referenced versions gone completely, the photos should be showing again as "New".

As far as I know, a photo will be treated as "new", if it is no longer in your Photos Library at all.

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Ignore "already imported" when importing

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