Photos "Import All New Items" does not import all valid files, several import rounds on same folder are required

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Level 1

12 points

Photos "Import All New Items" does not import all valid files, several import rounds on same folder are required

Photos Library got somehow corrupted and have to re-import all originals, which is several TBs. Doing this in smaller junks but still experience a weird Photos behavior. After selecting the import folder on my Desktop, I can review all Photos prior to the import and the button on top reads "Import All". After clicking, the import ran and to be sure all was imported, I repeated the same steps and again got a list of photos and videos from the folder that were not imported. Selecting "Import All New Items" will import more files but not necessarily all. After one or two additional import rounds of the same folder I am left with a bunch videos only. This time the button changes to "Import All Videos". After that, all files are imported.

Anyone any idea why Photos has this weird behavior of not importing everything? If I hadn't checked again for completeness, I would have been left with hundres if not thousands of files missing. Besides, Photos crashed several times and somtimes the import window to select the import source shows all files as greyed out but they behave like normal. Using the most recent version of Ventura and Photos.

Mac Studio (2022)

Posted on Apr 27, 2023 05:51 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

daryl s

Level 1

5 points

Nov 19, 2023 02:54 PM in response to sn0brdr

I'm currently on Sonoma 14.1.1 and Photos 9.0 but I've had this problem for ages, including the behaviour where you have to do several rounds of photo importing.

From what I can tell, videos exported from Photos end ".MOV" and live photos end ".mov".

The ".mov" live photos seem to import along with plain photos but, as sn0brdr says, even though the videos appear in the import window, they don't get imported.

I found a fix using the terminal with the following command:

open -a /System/Applications/Photos.app  <PATH_TO_DIRECTORY>/*.MOV

You'll see Photos show an import window with only videos, and the button reads "Import all videos". This button works. Just like sn0brdr, it doesn't work if I use the builtin Photos "Import" to select the directory.

I keep images in directories structured "YYYY/MM/DD/".

So, for example, to import all videos from 2023 I would do:

open -a /System/Applications/Photos.app  2023/*/*/*.MOV

Sometimes I've hit a problem where there are too many or something, so I break it down by month.

Good luck!

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

199,927 points

May 27, 2023 12:50 AM in response to sn0brdr

Photos may stop the import, if you have two items with the same filename included in one import session. If you import in very small groups, it is less likely that the selected items to import will include two files with the same filename.

How are you importing from the old, corrupted Photos Library? Are you importing directly from the library or did you copy the originals folder out of the library?

Just to be sure, have you tried to repair the library with Photos?

Have you checked, if the old library is on a compatible external volume? repairing the library will not help, if you are trying to keep your Photos Library on an unsupported volume. The library needs to be on a locally mounted volume, not a network share, the file system format should be either macOS Extended (Journaled) or APFS, and the volume must not have been used for Time Machine backups or have other backup software installed. Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 3

sn0brdr Author

Level 1

12 points

May 26, 2023 03:57 PM in response to DerekM87

The original library that I wanted to import was from a previous MacOS version as the old machine did not support Ventura anymore.

As I could not import the old library I created a fresh library. In the fresh library I see this behavior. I can import photos form a folder and import completes with no error. If I repeat the step on the same set of photos, I get agains a list of not yet imported ones. Have to repeat several times until there are no more new photos to be added.

Update. Same behavior observed when importing new photos from iPhone. Here too I had to import more than once.

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Answer 4

Apr 7, 2024 01:25 PM in response to sn0brdr

trying tp inspect to inner working:

at this moment I have 150 video imported, but they should be only referenced, not copied from the external HD.

in Photos Library.photoslibrary/originals have 253 .mp4, count is stable, using "find . -type f | wc -l"; they have a code name, dont know where they appear

Play memory video is the function right for me, few seconds for every video, so I can trace the download

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Answer 5

Feb 18, 2024 12:47 PM in response to daryl s

Thanks Daryl, I have not tried this but assume it probably works. It's just this is so ridiculous that this would have to be the solution.

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Answer 6

Apr 7, 2024 10:58 AM in response to sn0brdr

ok, goood to know I was doing the same, if doesnt import anymore, delete album and restart mac.

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Answer 7

DerekM87

Community Specialist

May 1, 2023 09:09 AM in response to sn0brdr

Hi sn0brdr,

To clarify, do you recall if there was any specific error or message when the library was original corrupted? Or any errors during the consecutive import processes afterwards?

Let us know, as these details will help us determine our next steps.

Cheers!

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Answer 8

sn0brdr Author

Level 1

12 points

May 27, 2023 03:20 PM in response to léonie

I was using the photo library on the same disks for years on my old Mac. I just connected the drive to my new Mac where Ventura corrupted my library on import attempt. It is an external LaCie Thunderbolt 2 drive with AFPS formatted disks in Raid 0. After the corruption I re-connected the drive to my old Mac from where I did the repair successfully.

On the new Mac I deleted the current Photos library and created a new one to start with a clean library. This time I did not attempt to import the old library but instead opened the Photos library folder on the Thunderbolt 2 drive and copied the Originals folders over to my OWC Thunderbolt 3 SSD Raid 0 in AFPS format. It was around 14 folders with Originals that I had in my old library (a bit more than 4 TB all together). Then I started to import folder by folder but on each of the 14 folders I had to run the import several times. It is well possible that there were photos with the same name but the import never stopped. It always completed and the photos missing were not the ones in the end but scattered across the import.

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Answer 9

Oct 24, 2023 03:01 PM in response to sn0brdr

This has been an issue for me for a few years now. Gone are the days of plugging in your iPhone, opening Photos, and clicking "Import All New Photos" (with delete after import checked). It is not a fluid process. I am constantly faced with no imports, no progress bar, or partial imports. Something is definitely wrong and as a photographer who uses Lightroom for archiving clients files (Canon files not iPhone), I'm about to find a new way to backup my iPhone photos and videos. I used Apple Photos for years and quite frankly I'm very tired of combing through files to make sure they were actually imported before being deleted. Very frustrating. Why is this even an issue????

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Answer 10

Feb 28, 2024 08:40 PM in response to sn0brdr

Problems like this really compound the amateur essence that runs throughout OSX. At what point does anything work enough to justify the outrageous price of your products? Can you not employ professional software developers and not destroy their ability to develop and release quality software???

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