Mac not sleeping with Photos library on external drive

Question

Level 1

18 points

Mac not sleeping with Photos library on external drive

It appears to be the Photo library that keeps it awake. I’ve even tried software that will force the mac to sleep and it still doesn’t manage to do so! I surely can’t be the only Mac user to move their bloated library from their built-in SSD, so I was surprised not to find others with this issue.

The external drive is a traditional hard drive. Not sure if that makes a difference but i can hear it crunching away while the display is off…

Thanks for reading.

Mac mini, macOS 15.5

Posted on Jul 15, 2025 04:34 PM

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Answer 1

markwmsn

Level 6

16,643 points

Jul 15, 2025 10:14 PM in response to edpurves

Photos has several background processes that will run against your Photos library when needed to maintain the various indices inside it. This will be more obvious on a traditional hard drive with audible head seeks.

We often recommend to users that they keep their Mac from sleeping at all so that processes like duplicate detection finish faster, letting the screen go off instead. It can also help with some Macs that are prone to ejecting their external drives when they go to sleep.

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Answer 2

Old Toad

Level 10

214,386 points

Jul 16, 2025 09:48 AM in response to markwmsn

markwmsn wrote:

We often recommend to users that they keep their Mac from sleeping at all so that processes like duplicate detection finish faster, letting the screen go off instead. It can also help with some Macs that are prone to ejecting their external drives when they go to sleep.

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