Duplicated photos in Apple Photos Mac app "cannot be opened because they do not exist".

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Level 1

4 points

Duplicated photos in Apple Photos Mac app "cannot be opened because they do not exist".

Hello, I have come across this glitch that has seemingly no workaround.

In Apple Photos, you can duplicate a photo. I need to do this so that I have two different aspect ratios of the same photo (and I edit all of my iPhone DNG and HEIC photos using Apple Photos on Mac).

When I first duplicate a photo, everything works fine. If I then edit that new duplicate in any way, two things happen: 1) the image becomes super low resolution. 2) The image can no longer be exported into a jpg in the finder. Doing so produces an error message saying that the "image doesn't exist". (Screenshot attached)

I have turned off all iCloud Photos settings on all of my devices (since I thought that was the original problem); the issue still happens 100% of the time.

I'm running macOS Monterey 12.5; if this issue is fixed in Ventura, I will update my OS. But I don't want to update the OS if the issue still persists.

If anybody can help me then I cannot thank you enough!! Have a good day, everyone!

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 12.5

Posted on Apr 12, 2023 2:14 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Richard.Taylor

Level 6

10,182 points

Apr 12, 2023 8:44 AM in response to Noobisoft

As muguy suggests, this doesn't seem to be a system problem. Since you've disconnected from iCloud, you should try these things:

Restart the computer (of course)
Rebuild your Photos Library--close Photos and re-launch by option-command-clicking the app icon. This can confuse iCloud, so it's good you've disconnected.
Make a new user and see if the same problem recurs with it
Use another library if you have one, or make a small test Library with a few pictures in it and see if the same thing happens.
Re-start in Safe Mode. This bypasses certain potentially disruptive processes. Safe Mode is different for different computers, so see this:

Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support

The idea is to find out if the problem is with the Library, with your account, or with caches and login items, and stuff like that. One of these steps may fix the problem, but their failure to work is also diagnostic.

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

197,279 points

Apr 14, 2023 3:20 AM in response to Noobisoft

When I first duplicate a photo, everything works fine. If I then edit that new duplicate in any way, two things happen: 1) the image becomes super low resolution. 2) The image can no longer be exported into a jpg in the finder. Doing so produces an error message saying that the "image doesn't exist". (Screenshot attached)

Have you tested, if you can export the image and add adjustments, before you duplicate it? It woul help to know, if all your photos are working well, before you try to duplicate them.

Your library seems to have been damaged already before you stopped using iCloud.

This can happen, if you are keeping the Photos Library on a volume, that is not compatible with iCloud, or if some app to remove duplicates has damaged the library.

Such a damage is hard to repair. If repairing the library cannot fix it, your best bet would be to restore the library from a backup you made, before the problems first occurred (before you started to use iCloud Photos, if you have used an optimized iCloud Photos Library, without downloading the originals to your Mac).

Restore from Time Machine

If you have not yet tried to repair the library, try it - but make a backup, before you try the repair - without overwriting any good older backup you may need:

See: Repair the library

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Answer 3

léonie

Level 10

197,279 points

Apr 12, 2023 10:28 AM in response to Noobisoft

You wrote "I have turned off all iCloud Photos settings on all of my devices (since I thought that was the original problem); the issue still happens 100% of the time."

When you did that, did you wait for all originals to download from iCloud Photos back to your device, before you turned off iCloud?

You would get this error message when trying to add adjustments to a photo, where the original has not been downloaded from iCloud and is no longer available for download, because the originals in iCloud can no longer be accessed.

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Answer 4

Noobisoft Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 14, 2023 3:01 AM in response to léonie

Hi, thanks for the reply!

Yes, when I disconnected iCloud, I distinctly remember a little bar appearing at the bottom of photos that said something like "downloading iCloud photos", and I waited for this download to completely finish. I honestly don't even have any iCloud photos on my Mac anymore, this glitch happens with photos that I have AirDropped from my iPhone 13 Pro.

I forgot to mention this, but the reason why I disconnected iCloud was because: when this glitch first happened, the image became super low-res, like I said, but a little image of a cloud with a cross appeared over the images. I thought that perhaps this was because the image was trying to upload to iCloud, my Internet was slow, and some glitch happened along the way. Alas, I disconnected iCloud, but even a new photo that I took five minutes ago and AirDropped to my Mac still cannot be duplicated.

I hope that has provided you with some extra info! Have a great day!

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Answer 5

Noobisoft Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 14, 2023 3:02 AM in response to muguy

Thanks for the reply!

I will update my Mac to the latest OS after I've tried all of the troubleshooting tips I was sent below. Is Ventura as slow on MacOS as iOS 16 has been on my iPhone? I never updated to Ventura because I've been having so many issues with iOS 16.

Have a great day!!

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Answer 6

Noobisoft Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 14, 2023 3:06 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

Thanks for the really detailed answer!

Does rebuilding my Photos Library delete any photos?

How do I make a new Photos Library?

Does restarting my Mac in Safe Mode put any data at risk of glitching out?

Sorry for so many questions but I'm relatively new to MacOS - only switched from PC in September and this is my first real glitch!

Thank you again, and have a great day!!

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Answer 7

Noobisoft Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 14, 2023 4:02 AM in response to léonie

Hey,

To answer your question: yes, before I duplicate one of the glitched-out photos, not only can I edit it, but I can also export it to jpg in the Finder with no issues. One workaround I thought of was to export all of my photos to jpg, and then duplicate and start editing them... but obviously that isn't ideal.

Now that I think of it, I did download some dodgy photo editing app with no reviews from the App Store, which also happened to be a Photos Extension... that may have corrupted my library.

Anyway, I may have found an annoying workaround! I think you're right about some sort of library damage occurring before I disconnected from iCloud, here's why:

I created a brand new library, and I then AirDropped a photo which I took in London which, of course, couldn't be duplicated in the old library.

Well, I AirDropped the same photo from my iPhone into this new library, and it duplicated just fine. Here's the good news, though: I was able to copy the adjustments made to the glitched-out photo in the glitched-out library, and apply them to the new photo in the new library... and was still able to duplicate the new photo just fine!

Luckily, for almost every photo I have on Mac, I have still kept the unedited original on iPhone... I'm now going to go through the painstaking process of AirDropping every single one of my photos to this new library, and then copy the old adjustments over for every single photo...

But please don't indicate that the issue has been solved just yet, because my library might glitch out again in a couple of hours!! 😅

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Answer 8

Noobisoft Author

Level 1

4 points

Apr 14, 2023 4:39 AM in response to Noobisoft

Update: I have rebuilt my main Library and the problem still persists... I think there is no way of repairing the original photos, so I am going to pursue my previous idea of manually AirDropping every photo from my iPhone and re-editing them all again in this new Library that I just created.

Do you reckon it was the Photos Extension or iCloud Photos which corrupted the Library? Have loads of other people had issues with iCloud Photos in the past?

Once again, this issue is not fully solved until I have left my new photos in my new Library for a couple of days and tried to duplicate them - so please don't mark this forum as "solved" just yet.

Thanks everyone for your help - this really is a great community!! 👍

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Answer 9

léonie

Level 10

197,279 points

Apr 14, 2023 10:47 AM in response to Noobisoft

Noobisoft wrote:

Luckily, for almost every photo I have on Mac, I have still kept the unedited original on iPhone... I'm now going to go through the painstaking process of AirDropping every single one of my photos to this new library, and then copy the old adjustments over for every single photo...

Then you could use Image Capture to download all originals from the iPhone to a folder on your Mac to archive your originals on your computer. It might be faster than airdropping them. Image Capture can download the photos to a folder on your Mac.

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Answer 10

muguy

Level 10

82,129 points

Apr 12, 2023 3:35 AM in response to Noobisoft

I cannot recreate the issue. I'm running the latest versions of all Apple software.

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Duplicated photos in Apple Photos Mac app "cannot be opened because they do not exist".

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