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Unable to access photos on external hard drive after upgrade to Big Sur

I upgraded my Macbook Air OS from Sierra to Big Sur. I was previously running out of space on the internal drive so had already moved all my photos onto an external drive. This had all worked well until the upgrade to the new OS. Now although I can access the hard drive to see some pictures on Photos I cant see the photos in the standard Photos arrangement. There are no annual albums for example. I hope there is a solution otherwise I will need to wipe the whole system and reinstate Sierra etc

Any help appreciated!

MacBook Air

Posted on Dec 29, 2021 3:20 AM

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Posted on Dec 29, 2021 10:19 AM

OK - you are looking at an empty library.


This is probably not the library on your external drive. It is probably the default empty library in your pictures folder. You can check by opening preferences which will tell you where the open library is located:


Hold down the option key while starting photos, and choose the library that is on your external drive to open. If you need it to sync with iCloud, then open preferences, and click the "use as system library" button.


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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 29, 2021 10:19 AM in response to GSWA

OK - you are looking at an empty library.


This is probably not the library on your external drive. It is probably the default empty library in your pictures folder. You can check by opening preferences which will tell you where the open library is located:


Hold down the option key while starting photos, and choose the library that is on your external drive to open. If you need it to sync with iCloud, then open preferences, and click the "use as system library" button.


Dec 29, 2021 7:13 AM in response to GSWA

GSWA wrote:

.... There are no annual albums for example. I hope there is a solution otherwise I will need to wipe the whole system and reinstate Sierra etc

Are you looking for the Moments, Months, Years in the Photos view?


The "Moments" have been renamed to "Days" and you should be seeing them in the "library" section in the sidebar. Can you confirm, that the sidebar in your Photos window is looking like described here?

Starting with a "Library" item and not with "Memories"? If yous sidebar is starting with "Memories" you are a victim of a bug, that is typical for some older Macs with an older graphic card model.


The first item "Library" is giving us access to the main library views. And it will not be shown if there is a problem with the graphics. I can reproduce this bug, when I am starting a Mac in Safe Mode and then launch Photos. The Photos.app is limited in this mode, because the advanced features of the graphics card are disabled. I have not seen a fix for this problem, other than ensuring that the Mac is running in normal mode and not in Safe Mode.


Dec 29, 2021 7:08 AM in response to GSWA

The problem with incompatible volumes is they can work - until they don't. Operating the library on one can result in a gradual build up of errors in the library until it eventually stops opening, otherwise malfunctions, or a later OS version decides it can't work with it. To be honest it is ridiculous that the app doesn’t detect an incompatible volume, and refuse to work with it (with appropriate message) until you sort it out

Jan 5, 2022 3:24 AM in response to TonyCollinet

Following this response I was able to access all my photos. However when I next switched on my macbook I was back to the same problem and only able to view the album by pressing the option key to find the Photos files. I therefore did what was suggested above and selected 'Use as system photo library' and now when I attempt to find the album it is missing from my external hard drive. Has it been wiped?? Help please.

Unable to access photos on external hard drive after upgrade to Big Sur

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