Unable to open photos in document folder

Question

Level 1

4 points

Unable to open photos in document folder

Yesterday I was not able to open .PNG files, today I can't open .JPG files either.

No problem with opening from Photos - yet.

One thing I notice is that under Settings => General => Mackintish HD only 80 Gb is used out of 1 Tb. However I know I have approx 150 Gb of videos on a One Drive which means it is also on my HD. So something is not right.

Old Trash has been deleted.

Where can I see how much space is actually available on my MacBook Air's HD and does this have anything to do with not being able to open my photos?\

MacBook Air 15″, macOS 26.0

Posted on Nov 3, 2025 6:55 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Nov 3, 2025 7:14 AM in response to steenrocks

What happens when you double-click on an image file? Try selecting one in Finder then selecting File menu > Get Info, what shows as the Open With app?

If it's not Preview, set it to Preview and try again. If it works, use the Change All button in that window to set Preview as the default (you'll have to do it for each image type).

If it was Preview, what happens if you open that app (Applications > Preview) then navigate to an image file and open it?

If still no success, see if the problem is present when you boot in safe mode, which disables 3rd party extensions and performs some system cleanup.

Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support

Reply

Answer 2

Nov 3, 2025 7:19 AM in response to steenrocks

Regarding the space, OneDrive does not necessarily keep everything on your local storage. The little cloud icon next to a file/folder means that item is not local, only on the OneDrive server. In my case, that applies to the largest item (a 151 MB folder):

The place to check how much Free space you have is in Disk Utility (in Applications > Utilities), by selecting the main container disk below the drive itself (you may need to select View menu > Show all devices to see it). Terminology is important here – free space is not the same thing as available space. The one that matters is Free space, but what macOS shows in most places is Available space. Available space includes both free space and ‘purgeable’ space, the latter comprises system caches, snapshots and other data that macOS can delete if it decides more free space is needed. However, there is no way the user can force those data to be purged. For example, on my M4 MacBook Pro with 2 TB storage, the Storage settings pane and Get Info on the internal drive show 1.24 TB of Available space, whereas Disk Utility shows there is 1.15 TB of actual Free space, 90 GB less than ‘available’.

Reply