Photo app on macOS Ventura 13.1 unable to import photos from iPhone

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What happens when you try?

Where is your library located? If on an external drive how is that drive formatted and onnedted to your MBP?

Have you tried using Image Capture to download the photos to a folder on the Desktop and importing from there?

Control (right) - click on the drive's icon on the Desktop and select Get Info from the contextual menu. In the Info pane that appears you'll see the formatting of the drive:

If, as Yer_Man pointed out it's not either APFS (for SSDs) or OS X Extended (journaled) for HDDs you won't be able to use the library with the Mac. This has nothing to do with your iPhone or iPad using the iCloud library and their own library.

I am having the same issue. My phone shows all my pics on iCloud. My newly updated iMac (update to Ventura 13.1) won’t get past saying that it’s syncing with the cloud. It’s been 10 days since I updated to Ventura And photo has unexepdctsnyly close 10 times

What does that mean? I don’t know anything about formatting. My photos are all fine and in icloud (I can see all of them no problem from my phone and my iPad). It is my iMac that is the problem (and this started when I upgraded to Ventura). It won’t complete the sync (it looks stuck and I’ve done a hard close) so I can’t see all my phones on my iMac. I wouldn’t know where to start formatting and I assume your average user wouldn’t either. I’m not techie but I do very well when it comes to based tech issues.

The library is located on an external drive

What format is that? It needs to be formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or apfs.