You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Photos taking AGES to scan people since Catalina

My 90K+ library running on late 2017 iMac (photos are on external thunderbolt) has been scanning photos since upgrade. I had massive issues after the upgrade and it took weeks (literally) to sort itself out in terms of syncing with iCloud.

Now however a new problem - I use the People tab all the time and currently it's stuck re-scanning the library. It's only scanning about 100 a day despite being plugged in constantly with all settings set to no sleeping etc (an rarely any other programs running). I have tried running it with photos open but minimised or closed all together and there is no difference.

Have obviously tried several restarts, shutdowns etc. The library has only recently been repaired (because of the aforementioned issues).

I'm getting pretty frustrated - the release was more than a month ago and my library has been useless since then.

Is anyone else finding this problem?

iMac 21.5" 4K, macOS 10.13

Posted on Nov 6, 2019 9:59 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Nov 7, 2019 12:21 AM

What is the current state of the faces scan?

Does the people album look like this, with the "View People Album" button disabled? Or can you click the "View People album" button and work the already detected faces?



For my main library with roughly 55000 photos and videos, I have been able to access the People album after three days. The scan had not been finished, but I could inspect the People album and search for people. Using the search, you should already be able to search for previously named faces, even if the new scan has not yet been finished.



Have you used the "Optimize Storage" option for your iCloud Photos Library? The scan will be faster, if all photos have been downloaded from iCloud. After you repaired the library, Photos first have to upload the complete library to iCloud Photos, then download the photos again from iCloud, before it can start the new faces scan. What does the status bar below the "All Photos" view show? Is Photos currently still uploading the library to iCloud? Are there any items listed, that cannot be uploaded? About the status bar in Photos for macOS - Apple Support

Similar questions

2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Nov 7, 2019 12:21 AM in response to honorjo

What is the current state of the faces scan?

Does the people album look like this, with the "View People Album" button disabled? Or can you click the "View People album" button and work the already detected faces?



For my main library with roughly 55000 photos and videos, I have been able to access the People album after three days. The scan had not been finished, but I could inspect the People album and search for people. Using the search, you should already be able to search for previously named faces, even if the new scan has not yet been finished.



Have you used the "Optimize Storage" option for your iCloud Photos Library? The scan will be faster, if all photos have been downloaded from iCloud. After you repaired the library, Photos first have to upload the complete library to iCloud Photos, then download the photos again from iCloud, before it can start the new faces scan. What does the status bar below the "All Photos" view show? Is Photos currently still uploading the library to iCloud? Are there any items listed, that cannot be uploaded? About the status bar in Photos for macOS - Apple Support

Nov 7, 2019 10:59 AM in response to léonie

I can access the people tab but individual photos are really messed up - duplicates of many faces which I’ve previously tagged.

It appears to have overwritten a lot of my precious work in naming people as many now have no names at all. Disappointingly the + button for all new faces was taken away a while back so I can’t even use that to name all the new faces. At this rate it’s going to require a full redo.

All pics are downloaded to the drive and optimise storage is not selected. It is fully synced with iCloud now. Always has been but because of repair it had to redo even that.

Photos taking AGES to scan people since Catalina

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.