I have been trying to merge duplicate photos on my iMac. I've followed the steps suggested by Apple, exited and reopened Photos, and finally just waited to see if Photos needs to finish indexing. None of that worked. Photos seems to have indexed all of my many duplicates. It just doesn't want to merge them. Any advice?
iMac 27″, macOS 12.0
Are you using iCloud Photos? If yes, are you using the Shared iCloud Photos Library?
Then you may want to wait, until the current iCloud syncing has been finished. Photos needs to be able to access the originals in iCloud to merge the merge the photos.
If you are seeing a message ".. at this time", it may indicate ongoing work at Apple's servers. In that case check Apple's system sytatus page and wait: Apple - Support - System Status
I'm using iCloud to optimize storage on my hard disk, but I'm not using Shared iCloud Photos Library. I've had Photos running for over 24 hours now. Could it take longer than that? Everything seems available on Apple's System Status.
What's the fix when you get the error message "Duplicate photos cannot be merged at this time"?
