After the last update to Photo with Catalina 10.15.1, Photo crashes when I delete an album. Photo created dozens of albums that have no photos in them. It will take a long time to delete them if I have to restart Photo every time.
iMac 27", macOS 10.15
Have you tried to repair the Photos Library? It looks like your library might be damaged.
Repair the library as described here, but make a backup copy, before you try the repair: Repair your library in Photos on Mac - Apple Support
Only, if you are using iCloud Photos, repairing the library will result in a new iCloud upload. If you are using iCloud Photos and the upload to iCloud is complete, I would download a fresh copy of the Photos Library from iCloud to a new, empty library. That would repair your albums as well, without a new, lengthy upload to iCloud.
Have checked your system volume with Disk Utility? To repair the StartUP volume you need to run Disk Utility after booting the Mac from the Recovery partition: About macOS Recovery – Apple Support
If the Photos Library is in your Home folder on the System Volume, you may also want to repair the permissions in the Home folder, to ensure, that Photos can save all relevant data.
Resolve issues caused by changing the permissions of items in your home folder - Apple Support
If you do not see. "case-sensitive mentioned in Disk Utility, the format is not case-sensitive.
As you are using iCloud Photos, I would download a new copy of the library from iCloud.
If you have projects, they will be missing from the new library, because projects are not stored in iCloud. In Catalina also the smart albums will be missing. Keep the old library to save your projects and smart albums.
Or go for a library repair instead of a new download, but it will take longer.
Leoni, I had copied my library to an SSD so the upload to iCloud started over again. In the process Photo created a whole bunch of albums that have nothing in them. For example I have an album "Jan 14, 2012(40). Indicating that there are 40 photos in the album. When you open it there are 0 photos. So I want to delete all these, but each time I do Photo crashes. If I hold down the Control key I can continue deleting without crashes.
Also I'm not liking that photos are fuzzy at first. I had specified "Download Originals to this Mac" with "Optimise Mac Storage" off. Storage should not be a problem since I have my library on a dedicated 1TB SSD and my library is about 180GB.
Photos should not be crashing, even if the library has problems. You may want to report the bug to Apple.
I noticed after the Catalina upgrade that the albums have been very slow to sync. It took days, before the photos appeared in them. Are you seeing the same empty albums on your iCloud web page at www.icloud.com?
I would not delete albums, while the syncing with iCloud has not yet finished. Wait until the staus bar below the Photos view is showing "Updated just now".
Does your extenal SSD have the correct file system format (APFS or MacOS Extended (Journaled), and not case-sensitive)?
Yes the same empty albums on iCloud web page. SSD is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Don't know about case sensitive or see an option in Disk Utility. I have reported the bug to Apple.
I am in the process of backing up my library. Should I do the rebuild or download a new copy from iCloud?
How do I download a new copy from iCloud? Thanks
How do you download iCloud Photo Library to a new library?
Thank you. I'll try a repair. If that does not work then I'll try the above.
I did the rebuild and now all the photos are clear. I still have reams of fake albums with nothing in them and Photo still crashes each time I delete one. Slowly getting somewhere!
I also found out that all my keywords are missing from smart albums. Any idea on how I can restore them?
Trying the repair route. Its been four days and still repairing. I think I'll give up on it and try the create now library option.
Photo crashes every time I delete an album
