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I have been cleaning up a large photo database (57,000 files) which I store on an external drive. I used a third-party app to delete duplicates, but the extra photos still show up (as "referenced file offline") in the Photos app. Is there a way to sort my files or display only the offline photos so I can delete the thumbnails in one shot.?
iMac 27″ 5K, macOS 11.1
You can create a smart album with rule "Photo is referenced".
It will you show all referenced photos. But it cannot search specifically for offline photos. You could try to consolidate all referenced photos from this album and copy them into the Photos Library. The remaining referenced photos in the smart album should then be only the offline versions.
You can create a smart album with rule "Photo is referenced".
It will you show all referenced photos. But it cannot search specifically for offline photos. You could try to consolidate all referenced photos from this album and copy them into the Photos Library. The remaining referenced photos in the smart album should then be only the offline versions.
cbastian wrote:
2) you can't delete files from an Album (only remove them).
Deleting Photos from a Photos Library
1 - regardless of where you are in the library, i.e. Photos, Memories, Favorites, People, Recents, Imports, albums or smart albums, select the photo(s) you want to delete and use the key combination of Command+Delete to move the photos to the Recently Deleted smart album. Without the Command key held down you'll be presented with a confirmation Yes/No window regarding the deletion.
2 - click on the Recently Deleted smart albums in the sidebar.
NOTE 1: If you're using Photos 1.2 or earlier use the File ➙ Show Recently Deleted menu option.
3 - in the Recently Deleted album you can opt to let the photo automatically delete after the 30 day waiting period is up, delete them immediately or restore them to the library.
NOTE 2: deleting a photo from an album, slideshow, book, etc., with the Delete key only deletes the photo from that item. There is no key combination that will delete a photo from a project and move it directly to the Recently Deleted smart album.
NOTE 3: deleting a photo from a Moment or Collection (the Photos window) or the All Photos window deletes ALL occurences of that photo in the library.
Thanks for the suggestion but 1) ALL of my photos are referenced, and copying ALL of them into the Library would be extremely time consuming, and 2) you can't delete files from an Album (only remove them).
You can delete photos from an album, even on Big Sur. Hold down the command key ⌘ while hitting the delete key. The cmd)key will change the the command "Remove from album" to "Delete Photo" in the Image menu and also in the contextual menu, when you Ctrl-click selected photos. While working from a smart album, there is no "Remove from album" at all, the only option is to delete the photos, so in a smart album the delete key will suffice.
The support for referenced files is very basic in Photos for Mac as you have found out - a far cry from what we had in Aperture. There is no tool to detect broken references. And af something goes wrong and you have to relocate the referenced files or to restore them from a backup, you will have a very hard time to reconnect them. As your library is already on an external volume, you it would be safer to consolidate them. If you do not want to consolidate the "good" references, you will have to weed out the broken references manually.
Or restore the removed duplicates from a backup and reconnect them to fix your library. It is much easier to delete files from Photos that are not referenced.
Is there a way to sort photos tagged as "Referenced File Offline"?
