Grayed out media (photos, videos) in Photos on Mac

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Level 1

4 points

Grayed out media (photos, videos) in Photos on Mac

A few months ago I uploaded my iPhone's camera roll onto my Mac which then I put into an external hard drive (the Photos Library). I then deleted all those pictures from my iPhone thinking they were all fine and safe on the hard drive/Photos Library. I just opened the hard drive to check the Photos Library and noticed that a lot of pictures/videos were grayed out and also not loading at full resolution (e.g. they're blurry). This has happened in the past but I never figured out what it was (corrupted files?). Is there any way to get them to load? That entire gray section at the top of the first image is all photos/videos :-( There are probably thousands of images that are grayed out.

Thanks!

[Edited by Moderator]

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 14.6

Posted on Sep 8, 2025 10:43 AM

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Answer 1

Sep 8, 2025 11:23 AM in response to leadora

First, how is the external drive formatted? To avoid damaging the Photos Library an external drive must be formatted in either APFS format or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. The drive must be connected directly to the Mac by cable, not networked, clouded, NASed, etc. Additionally, the drive can not have had Time Machine on it since it was formatted. There have been so many problems with using incompatible drives that the newest macOSs won't even allow a Library on a non-Mac formatted drive to open, since there is a chance of damaging the Photos database. See this:

Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

If this drive is in a an incompatible format, stop running Photos with it immediately! A Photos Library can sit on an incompatible drive, but running it may corrupt the database.

If the drive is properly formatted, you should, first, make a copy. Then try repairing the Library by closing Photos and re-launching by option-command-clicking the app icon.

It sounds like you should have a copy of the Library on your Mac's drive-- is that right?

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Answer 2

leadora Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 8, 2025 12:20 PM in response to Richard.Taylor

I only have the Photo Libraries with the content from my iPhone on the SSD, my Photos on my Mac is currently empty. I just searched my SSD and apparently it is ExFAT by default but can be formatted with APFS and Mac OS Extended (I have a Samsung T7 SSD). So should I just not open the Photos Libraries saved on my SSD anymore to prevent further damage?

Now I'm unsure what to do--I probably should save the contents of my SSD somewhere else then format my SSD to APFS or Mac OS Extended and then put the contents back onto the SSD... but the thing is I don't have anywhere to put the contents of the SSD 😭

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Answer 3

leadora Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 8, 2025 12:23 PM in response to leadora

chatgpt gave this as an option: Create a New Partition (Without Deleting Current Data)

If you don’t want to wipe the whole drive and there's enough free space, you can:

Open Disk Utility.

Select the SSD.

Click Partition (not Erase).

Add a new partition and format it as APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

You'll now have two volumes on the same SSD — one with your old data, one with the new format.

⚠️ Caveats:

Doesn’t work on all SSDs or configurations.

Slight risk of corruption, so back up important data first.

Can only be done if you’re currently using ExFAT or a compatible format.

could this be a good alternative? I havent checked if I have enough of this "free space" though

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Answer 4

Sep 8, 2025 12:39 PM in response to leadora

You're really going to trust your pictures to chatgpt?

Your Library may already be corrupted beyond repair. You need to copy that Library to someplace safe (on your Mac if you have room) and reformat the drive with Mac's Disk Utility. If the drive is solid state, then certainly use APFS.

You may be able to add an APFS volume to the drive in addition to the current ExFAT, but if it were my pictures I wouldn't trust what's gone on before.

The fact is, if you don't have one, you need another drive, because you need to be doing backups, and those should be on a separate drive. A fast SSD can be less that $80/TB (well, who knows about tomorrow.) Photos has to be fast, but a backup can be slow, so mechanical drives are fine for backup and cheaper.

So the best bet is to copy the Photos Library to another drive and reformat this one.

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Answer 5

leadora Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 9, 2025 06:04 AM in response to leadora

more info about my SSD - it seems I have more than enough free space ?

[Edited by Moderator]

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