Photos and videos missing in Photos.app

Hey realMacMark!

Good question. Without probing too much further:

It sounds like iCloud Photos is turned on in “Photos > Preferences > iCloud”, is that right?

Also, since it sounds like your iCloud storage is okay, (Assuming), checking the available free storage on your Mac is a good way to isolate a cause, if you haven’t already:

Apple > About This Mac > Storage.

With Photos open, if you click on “Photos” on the top menu, then “Preferences”, “General”, is the option for “Use as system library” greyed out, or selectable? If selectable, then it’s not your default library, if not, then it is.

iCloud will only sync with the default, designated Photos Library:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204414

If it’s not set as the System Library, then iCloud won’t sync with it. I’m not sure if this is the case, but if you have more than one library, this is also a good thing to check.

Hope that helps, otherwise happy to help if I can!

Hey again! I see, thanks for the info.

It could be the library is corrupted, you could create a new Photos Library, and test with that library, or even create a new Admin account and sign in to test, and safe boot may also be a good way to isolate the cause.

But most likely, the library just needs to be repaired:

How to use the Photos Library repair tool:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204967

In short, (If you haven’t done this already), Quit Photos, and relaunch holding Command and Option, and choose the option to repair.

It could be one of those weird, selective bugs that seemingly has no rhyme or reason, I think that’s a good step though, I usually make a backup first, but either way hope that helps out!

Gotcha. So the missing photos don’t show anywhere? Also not in the Camera Roll or Photos, or iCloud.com? Apologize I thought they were in the main Photos category just not grouped into “Videos”.

In that case do you have a Time Machine backup? Or even an iOS backup? (Either on your Mac or in iCloud)

You May have already looked at “Recently Deleted” if not, that’s a good place to check.

I know with the “Shared” Album, if you didn’t create it yourself, those photos need to be told to download onto your device, if not are otherwise downloadable if there.

Its a stretch, but also at iCloud.com, do any of the photos show in Photos > Recently Deleted, or even in iCloud Drive > Recently Deleted?

You can also restore archives of files in Account Settings > Restore Files, these would be mostly iCloud Drive documents, Contacts, etc, (Some people do store photos here, even full Photos Libraries (Probably by accident).

Anyhow if they don’t show anywhere there I hope you had a backup going if an entire year is missing from all devices, all the best.