Jan 24, 2016 Repairing a Corrupt Apple Photos Library TWiT Tech Podcast Network. How to Reset Photos app in Mac OS X new photos app. HOW TO REPAiR CORRUPT/BROKEN PHOTOS AND iMAGE FiLES - Duration. Feb 21, 2020 If you've created a backup of Photos Library with Time Machine, follow the steps below to restore Photos Library and all lost photos: 1. Connect Time Machine backup drive. Click Time Machine in the Dock and enter Time Machine. Find backups - your photos then click Restore to recover lost photos. Repair corrupted Photos Library. Mar 18, 2020 If your Photos library won't open, or if Photos behaves unexpectedly, the Photos library repair tool might resolve the issues. Follow these steps to use the Photos library repair tool: Hold down the Option and Command keys while you open Photos on your Mac. In the dialog that appears, click Repair to start the repair process.
- Photos has attempted to repair the library Photos Library.photoslibrary but is unable to open it. The most common cause of this is a permissions problem. Not necessarily that you don’t have the permission, as Photos will prompt for administrator permissions if that’s simply the case, but that permissions can’t be obtained, even with.
- Aug 11, 2017 This triggers the automatic “Repair Library” feature of the Photos app. Click Repair on that prompt, and then enter your admin account user name and password to continue. After entering your account details, click Repair again. The Photos app will now attempt to repair your library.
Your Photos library holds all your photos, albums, slideshows, and print projects. If your library is large, and you want to free up storage space on your Mac, turn on iCloud Photo Library and use Optimize Mac Storage, or move your library to an external drive.
Before you start, be sure to back up your library.
Prepare your drive
You can store your library on an external storage device, such as a USB or Thunderbolt drive formatted as APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled).1 Find out how to check the format of your external storage device.

To prevent data loss, Apple doesn't recommend storing photo libraries on external storage devices like SD cards and USB flash drives, or drives that are shared on a network.
Move your Photos library to an external storage device
Unable To Repair Photo Library Mac
- Quit Photos.
- In the Finder, go to the external drive where you want to store your library.
- In another Finder window, find your library. The default location is Users > [username] > Pictures, and it's named Photos Library.
- Drag your library to its new location on the external drive. If you see an error, select your external drive's icon in the Finder, then choose File > Get Info. If the information under Sharing & Permissions isn't visible, click , then make sure the 'Ignore ownership on this volume' checkbox is selected. If it's not selected, click to unlock it, enter an administrator name and password, then select the checkbox.2
- After the move is finished, double-click Photos Library in its new location to open it.
- If you use iCloud Photo Library, designate this library as the System Photo Library.
Delete original library to save space
After you open your library from its new location and make sure that it works as expected, you can delete the library from its original location.
Repair Photo Library Mac Catalina
In a Finder window, go back to your Pictures folder (or whichever folder you copied your library from) and move Photos Library to the trash. Then choose Finder > Empty Trash to delete the library and reclaim disk space.
Open another Photos library
If you have multiple libraries, here's how to open a different one:
- Quit Photos.
- Press and hold the Option key while you open Photos.
- Select the library that you want to open, then click Choose Library.
Photos uses this library until you open a different one.
Learn more

If you have a permissions issue with your library, you might be able to resolve the issue by using the Photos library repair tool.
1. You can't move your library to a disk that's used for Time Machine backups.
2. If the volume isn't formatted APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled), or has been used for Time Machine backups but hasn't been erased, this checkbox will either not be present, or won't be selectable after unlocking. Erase and reformat the drive for this option to be available.