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Photos on MacBook running Ventura vs iMac running Monterey

I was hoping to manage photos located on iMac running Monterey, so I connected via SMB and opened it, but it ended up converting the photos app to the latest version, and now I can't open it on iMac.


I need to keep my photo library (1.2TB) on the iMac because it has 3TB hard drive, and the MacBook only has 512MB.


The iMac is from late 2015 and unfortunately can't be upgraded to Ventura.


I do run Time Machine and have a back up, but really don't want to have to do a restore, because I will have to delete the photo library from the hard drive in order to make enough space for the restore, and it will take forever to restore.


Any suggestions on what would be the quickest and easiest way to:

  1. be able to open current photo library on iMac
  2. be able to somehow access photo library on iMac from MacBook without above scenario happening


Thank you!

iMac 27″, macOS 12.6

Posted on Jul 5, 2023 7:43 AM

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Posted on Jul 5, 2023 9:23 AM

You can't delete old backups manually. They won't be removed from the Trash Bin.


Also, the Photos library can't be on the same drive that Time Machine uses for backup. TM requires its own, undivided drive.


I strongly recommend you get another drive and put your library on (and ny other files as desired). It must be formatted either APFS or OS X Extended (hournaled) with ownership set to be ignored. Then erase the TM drive, format it APFS and start anew with Time Machine.


If you have a dedicated drive for your Photos library you can have it contain the full sized originals instead of optimized versions (if that's what you've done) and be able to back it up with Time Machine along with your boot drive.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jul 5, 2023 9:23 AM in response to DiaDes

You can't delete old backups manually. They won't be removed from the Trash Bin.


Also, the Photos library can't be on the same drive that Time Machine uses for backup. TM requires its own, undivided drive.


I strongly recommend you get another drive and put your library on (and ny other files as desired). It must be formatted either APFS or OS X Extended (hournaled) with ownership set to be ignored. Then erase the TM drive, format it APFS and start anew with Time Machine.


If you have a dedicated drive for your Photos library you can have it contain the full sized originals instead of optimized versions (if that's what you've done) and be able to back it up with Time Machine along with your boot drive.

Jul 5, 2023 8:39 AM in response to DiaDes

First some information: Photos is primarily a database that keeps track of all your pictures and the details associated with them. It’s like an Excel spreadsheet with the rows being the pictures and the columns being the details, like date, location, faces, albums they’re in, and even all the steps in editing a picture. So Photos never alters an original picture file— when you look at a picture, Photos shows you the original and, on the fly, adds all the alterations listed in the database. This is very cool!


The point of that story is that, when you update the Photos app, like you did going from Monterey to Ventura, Photos had to add new columns to accommodate all the new features. Ventura Photos could not read the old library without the right columns, and Monterey can not read the new database that has extra columns. 


So you can see that there is no way to have a single library that can be read by two different versions of the MacOS. 


There is only one way (that I can think of) to view exactly the same stuff on two versions, and that is to use Photos on iCloud.com. If you turn on iCloud in your Ventura Photos, then all the pictures will be copied to iCloud (possibly taking a week or more.) Another computer with the same Apple ID can connect to iCloud and download those pictures into its own Library, and iCloud with fit them into that system’s database. Of course, iCloud will cost a bit. 


You can, of course, restore the old version for your iMac, but it will be static-- new pictures added in Ventura will not appear there. Using iCloud means you can add, edit, delete, or whatever, pictures on either machine and the same will happen in the other.


You say you have backed up your Library with Time Machine. Is TM on the same hard drive? If so, you may have trouble — unless they exist on separate volumes. Time Machine can mess up a a Photos Library that’re on the same volume, even if TM is deleted. And to avoid damaging the Photos Library an external drive must be formatted in either APFS format or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. The volume can not have had Time Machine on it since it was formatted.


Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support


Jul 5, 2023 9:10 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

Thank you for the information. Although I was hoping to be able to do this on both, since that will not work, I will be fine with only having a static version on the iMac and it sounds like restore from TM is the only option. I prefer not to use iCloud for entire photo library at this time.


TM is on the same drive as the photo library, but TM backs up to an external Lacie 5TB, (unfortunately close to capacity, so I may need to delete all old backups to free up space). I'm not sure how the external drive is formatted but in Disk Utility it says "USB External Physical Volume • Mac OS Extended".


So at this point, I'm not sure of the exact steps to follow in order to restore? Thanks again and I would so appreciate advice on this.


Jul 5, 2023 9:31 AM in response to DiaDes

"USB External Physical Volume • Mac OS Extended" is good.


I know that claustrophobic feeling when all your storage is so full that you can't seem to even turn around. I fear that the only solution is probably money. I'd invest in another hard drive. I tend to stick with 1 TB or 2 TB drives-- I'm always afraid that with a larger drive I will just lose way too much information if it fails!


If your MacBook has a USB-C or Thunderbolt port, I'd get a fast solid state drive if I could-- 1 TB maybe $77 on Amazon (they've gone up!) A slower mechanical drive is maybe $50. If you use a drive just for long-term backup, speed doesn't matter so much, and they cost less. But I've found thumb drives to be pretty sketchy; even two from the same company may be wildly different in quality.

Jul 5, 2023 10:02 AM in response to DiaDes

I would reconsider your objection against iCloud Photos. It is the only option to be able to use a Photos Library on different Apple devices with different system version. With my Photos Library in iCloud I can work with my photos on my older macs with macOS 10.14 Mojave as well as on my Macs with Ventura, on my old iPs with iOS 9 as well as on my iPhone and iPad Pro with iOS 16/iPadOS 16. And all are perfectly in sync. i can just grab the device that is near me and access the photos, or use the older software that will no longer run on Ventura to edit my photos on the Mojave Macs. It is the one thing that I really love about Photos.

Jul 10, 2023 6:04 PM in response to Richard.Taylor

Thanks for the info. After freeing up enough disk space on my iMac, and renaming and moving the accidentally upgraded version of photolibrary elsewhere, I was able to successfully restore photolibrary from backup. After running for over 24 hours, all is good. Now it will hopefully restore people, tags, etc., which will probably take a week.

Photos on MacBook running Ventura vs iMac running Monterey

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