User profile for user: AlanOfTheBerg
AlanOfTheBerg Author
User level: Level 1
5 points

Photos app cannot open any of my dozen or so Libraries

Problem: I am unable to open ANY of my dozen or so Photos Libraries. Photos only shows "Restoring ... 0%" for each and every one of them.


System: Mini 2024, Sonoma 15.7.2 (24G325), Photos 10.0 (770.0.172)


Abstract: I've not been able to successfully Open, Restore or Repair any of my current libraries, nor any of their backups for the last couple of weeks. I cannot think of anything that changed or happened which preceded this situation. All of the libraries are stored on an external Thunderbolt 4 connected drive running macOS Journaled Extended. The drive has never been a Time Machine destination. The libraries are not stored in iCloud Drive. None of the libraries have been an iCloud library. I do not have iCloud Photos turned on.


Things I've been doing to try and diagnose or recover from this issue below.

  • With each time I write, "Restoring ... 0%" that means also that I let it sit for several hours and never did it get past 0%. Including sometimes, leaving it for 24hrs.
  • A few times, a couple of days ago, I was also getting the "can't open library (3146)" error, but that hasn't come up lately.


  1. Restored different libraries from weeks or months ago from Backblaze. Each of them goes directly to "Restoring ... 0%"
  2. A couple of these initially would open, and be just fine. I thought I was home free.
    • But after about 5 minutes, a modal came up saying, "The Photos App needs to quit because the library is being moved, is unavailable or the data is corrupt."
    • However, the library I was using was not being moved, was still available. But I cannot say with 100% certainty that it wasn't somehow corrupted.
    • Each time this happened, the amount of time it took for that popup to appear felt almost exactly the same.


  1. Opened various of my several libraries. Same "Restoring ... 0%"
  2. Opened the default library in my user's ~/Pictures folder. It wouldn't even open at all due to an error.
  3. Option-opened Photos and created a new Photo Library is the ~/Pictures folder.
  4. This worked.
  5. I opened one of my other libraries again. Same issue "Restoring ... 0%"
  6. I tried to open the same library created in #3 above. Back to the same issue "Restoring ... 0%" When I open that newly created library today I get, "Photos was unable to open the library “Photos Library 2.photoslibrary”. (3142)"
  7. I tried to create another new photo library in my ~/Pictures folder. Photos hung doing that at the model dialog where it was asking where I want to put/name the library. I had to force quit the app.
  8. When I attempt to move either of the ~/Pictures libraries to the Trash, Finder just ping-pongs at the "Items to delete: 1" little message box and nothing happens.


During each of these times that Photos is sitting with "Restoring ... 0%", the app will still allow me to Quit it nicely.


I and also cmd+option open Photos and attempt to repair any of the photo albums. This results in the message about "Repairing" and will jump quickly to either 94% or 95% and then it gets stuck. Never changes. Photos app then goes to "Not responding" and never comes back. I've let it sit for 2-12 hours. I have to cmd+opt+esc to force quit it.


Hypotheses, based on that I just cannot see how "all of a sudden" ALL of the libraries individually became corrupted. This feels systemic.


  • There is one, maybe more "corrupted" photo albums that the "system" is keeping track of and it is causing hangs on open.
  • The Photos app itself has some kind of corruption
  • There are cache, temporary files, or other typically non-visible data in system folders causing this issue.


I am thinking I might have to wipe the system drive and start over. I'm concerned that doing a restore from Time Machine might bring back the issues with it, and I do not look forward to manually setting up everything from scratch. I'd love to replace just the Photos app, but that doesn't seem to be possible like it is in iOS.


Please let me know your ideas for recovering from this situation.

Posted on Dec 7, 2025 12:47 PM

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14 replies
User profile for user: Richard.Taylor
Richard.Taylor
User level: Level 6
17,023 points

Dec 7, 2025 12:58 PM in response to AlanOfTheBerg

AlanOfTheBerg wrote: …3. Option-opened Photos and created a new Photo Library is the ~/Pictures folder.
4. This worked.…

Well… So you know Photos is OK. When you have Photos working with a new Library, and you import pictures from one of the other Libraries?


Do you have the trusted 3rd party app PowerPhotos ($40?) This is pretty much indispensable for handling multiple Libraries. I wonder if PowerPhotos will work with a Library. If so, then you could use it to copy pictures into a new, working Library.  

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User profile for user: léonie
léonie
User level: Level 10
200,525 points

Dec 12, 2025 4:53 AM in response to AlanOfTheBerg

The new Photo Libraries I test created were located in ~/Library, which is the system drive, not the external one most of my libraries are on. The issue persists there.


~/Library is not a suitable location for a Photos Library. The Library folder is used to store temporary App data, like Settings or caches. Please repeat the test with a new library in ~/Pictures . Your Pictures folder is the place where the Photos.app is installing new libraries by default. Or create another folder in your Home folder for your test libraries. Just do not use any folder that is syncing with iCloud Drive, like Documents or Desktop, if you have iCloud Drive enabled.


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User profile for user: AlanOfTheBerg
AlanOfTheBerg Author
User level: Level 1
5 points

Dec 10, 2025 6:54 PM in response to Yer_Man

Yer_Man wrote:

IF all the Libraries are sitting on the same disk, for me that would point the finger at that hardware.

And where is it restoring from?

The new Photo Libraries I test created were located in ~/Library, which is the system drive, not the external one most of my libraries are on. The issue persists there.


The restores I did were from Backblaze as noted. If you are referring to the message in the Photos app, I have no idea. That's just what the Photos app says. It never asks anything, just goes straight to that message is the only thing in the Photos window.

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User profile for user: Richard.Taylor
Richard.Taylor
User level: Level 6
17,023 points

Dec 9, 2025 6:49 AM in response to AlanOfTheBerg

AlanOfTheBerg wrote: … The last time I checked with PowerPhotos developer, figuring out how to copy over the Face database info wasn't planned, though it was being looked at.

Face recognition is quite volatile. Because the algorithm keeps changing (and improving, I hope,) face names are always subject to re-evaluation. Major updates may, in any case, re-scan pictures with a new idea of what makes a face unique, so it can start all over again. Face IDs are not especially transferrable metadata, since there is no standard., (A list of names may or may not be included, but not which face goes with which name.) I'm not sure there is anything to preserve with face recognition.


Many of us use face recognition to help us add keywords to identifiable people. I open the People Album for my Aunt Bonnie, select all, and add the keyword "AuntBonnie" to them all. Then, if I find other pictures with Aunt Bonnie in them, and even if it's the back of her head or for some other reason not recognized by Photos, I add the keyword. Then, if the face recognition gets disrupted, I can use a Smart Album to collect all the Bonnies to together, again. Keywords are a standard part of metadata, and they transfer with the pictures.

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User profile for user: AlanOfTheBerg
AlanOfTheBerg Author
User level: Level 1
5 points

Dec 11, 2025 8:22 PM in response to AlanOfTheBerg

One final note on this adventure: while Photos fails to function in terms of the "find more photos with ...." Faces functionality for existing photos, when I import a single new photo, Photos does find all the faces in a photo, and for the ones which have an existing Person in the library, they are being correctly identified. And it does this in about 6 seconds for that one imported photo.

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User profile for user: AlanOfTheBerg
AlanOfTheBerg Author
User level: Level 1
5 points

Dec 12, 2025 7:19 AM in response to léonie

léonie wrote:
~/Library is not a suitable location for a Photos Library.

You are 100% correct of course. I mistyped that every time I wrote it. The ~/Pictures folder is where Photos would create the new/test photo libraries in my testing. They were not created in the Library folder. (In my head I was thinking "photo library" so my fingers typed "library" instead of "pictures.")

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User profile for user: AlanOfTheBerg
AlanOfTheBerg Author
User level: Level 1
5 points

Dec 7, 2025 1:30 PM in response to Richard.Taylor

Richard.Taylor wrote:
Well… So you know Photos is OK. When you have Photos working with a new Library, and you import pictures from one of the other Libraries?

Do you have the trusted 3rd party app PowerPhotos ($40?)

I'm not so sure it is. Though I can't say it isn't. The Library it created doesn't work. And now Photos hangs when I try to create another new one.


I do have PowerPhotos and I am considering using it. Though given the behavior of every other photo library I have, I don't have much faith that creating a new one with it will work. I also don't look forward to losing meta data like Faces. The last time I checked with PowerPhotos developer, figuring out how to copy over the Face database info wasn't planned, though it was being looked at.

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User profile for user: AlanOfTheBerg
AlanOfTheBerg Author
User level: Level 1
5 points

Dec 10, 2025 7:04 PM in response to Richard.Taylor

I will consider putting names as keywords if I need to. Or when I retire. :)


After trying many things, nothing drastic worked. So I got drastic and wiped my system drive. Installed Sequoia 15.7.2 (base for my Mini), and then upgraded to Tahoe. Restored from Time Machine, though I was still concerned some malignant or corrupted cache data related to my issue might be present in the backup.


Because my latest local copy of my primary photo library was 18GB smaller than a backup of it from 3 weeks ago, I restored the library from backup. Then opened it. Photos went into the Restoring/upgrading process, but this time, I could see the external drive activity going right away, and very quickly it started counting the percentages upwards. After 20 minutes, I had my library open.


Except for the standard issues we all have often with facial recognition recognizing the same faces in new photos or even in existing photos (every person shows "there don't seem to be any more photos...." when I try), I have had no issues. I've successfully opened 3 other libraries also.


This outcome does support my hypothesis that there was something in the system drive related to Photos, such as corrupted config files, plists, caches, etc, that was the source of the problem, not something in each individual library. Though it is also possible that the new version of Photos in Tahoe contains some changes or bug fixes that now handles the situation that was occurring. (Though the fact that it happened to every new library I tried to create under 15.7.x still points back to a system drive issue.)


Thanks to everyone who reached out with ideas and support.

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Photos app cannot open any of my dozen or so Libraries

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