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pdc2013 Author

Level 1

13 points

Accessing Photos after migrating from iMac to MacBook Pro

My iMac is 21.5” late 2015, and I use an Airport Time capsule circa 2017 for back up. Prior to migrating to my 2021 16” MacBook Pro running OS Monterey, I updated the iMac to Monterey. Then used migration assistant to load new MacBook from old iMac. Then pointed new MacBook to existing AirPort Time Capsule for backups, claiming old backups for new computer. (I plan to decommission the iMac and will be getting a new Airport as well.)

Now, here’s the question: upon opening Photos for the first time on my new MacBook, I get an error message saying I need to upgrade Photos. Simultaneously the screen tells me that it has updated the library “100% complete”. Clicking “Open Other” gives me the opportunity to create a new library. Should I create a new Library? And will I be able to access the old one?

MacBook Pro (2020 and later)

Posted on Nov 11, 2021 8:25 AM

Top-ranking reply

TonyCollinet

Level 7

23,954 points

Posted on Nov 11, 2021 9:20 AM

I'm guessing your Macbook pro is a minor version lower (of monterey) then your iMac. So it is trying to open a library created by a later version of MacOS and it can't.

You can double check by checking the MacOS versions on both machines - or just update your macbook pro to the latest Monterey and it will open it fine.

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Accessing Photos after migrating from iMac to MacBook Pro

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