Photo library on internal SSD very slow in Photos App in Sequoia

Question

Photo library on internal SSD very slow in Photos App in Sequoia

I recently bought an M3 MacBook Air with 16GB RAM and 2TB SSD to accommodate my entire one terabyte/100,000 image photo library. After Photos finished downloading all originals to my Mac, the Photos app is painfully slow— if I click a photo— especially one with a 50+MB file size, it takes minutes sometimes to open for me to edit the photos. If i click the enhance magic wand i get an "enhancing photo" status bar that hangs forever. Even with the originals on my internal SSD, Photos seems to be "downloading" them before opening (with Wi-Fi off, I still get the white status ring in the lower right of the photo). With the photos stored in iCloud, this is almost instant, but with them in my internal SSD, it takes minutes sometimes. Any ideas? Is the MacBook Air M3 not capable of handling 50+MB photos in large libraries? I tried deleting the Photos library and setting up a new library from iCloud and also repaired...

MacBook Air 15″, macOS 15.2

Posted on Dec 16, 2024 2:53 PM

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Answer 1

Jan 16, 2025 8:15 AM in response to bostonrevere81

bostonrevere81 wrote: … approximately two minutes to open one file at full resolution.

Since updating to 15.2 (from 15.1.1) I've noticed an amazing amount of delay with

filling circles when loading full resolution files in a Library that is not my System Library and, thus, is not connected to iCloud. It is similar in my System Library that is connected to iCloud but which keeps originals.

This seems to me to be specific to 15.2. I'm going to leave feedback with Apple:

Feedback - Photos - Apple

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Answer 2

Jan 25, 2025 12:32 PM in response to Richard.Taylor

As an update:

Photos on 18.2 with Nikon jpgs in a non-System Library is going through a loading cycle each time I edit or crop a picture, even when the picture has already been edited and cropped. I just tried creating a new Library and importing (through PowerPhotos) 300 pictures, and there's no change with the smaller library even for another user.

With my System Library, connected to iCloud with "Download Originals," the loading still occurs, but only once, that I can tell so far. Older pictures I'm not so sure about.

I've tried:

restart
restart safe
rebuild library
new user
new library

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Answer 3

Old Toad

Level 10

214,548 points

Jan 25, 2025 1:50 PM in response to Richard.Taylor

Ithought so 'cause I'm fluent in "typo".

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Answer 4

Jan 30, 2025 9:18 AM in response to bostonrevere81

I thought that 15.3 fixed this, but Photos is still going through a loading cycle each time I edit a picture, even when the picture has already been edited.

Loading time is about 10 seconds or so.

Sometimes it stays in this state

for a an extra 10 seconds or so.

I've gotta say, with 200 pictures, this is pretty frustrating.

Going out of Edit Mode and back in requires reloading. Sometimes reloading is not necessary after going into Crop mode. Sometimes it is.

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Answer 5

Jan 16, 2025 8:02 AM in response to bostonrevere81

Since I did not see any replies I thought I would provide an update. Everything I tried failed. Turning on iCloud photos and removing the photos from my internal hard drive and putting the photos on an external hard drive were both faster but still approximately two minutes to open one file at full resolution. I returned the M3 MacBook Air and exchanged it for an M4 pro MacBook Pro. All photos are stored in the cloud and they open at full resolution in a few seconds. I truly believe something was wrong with that MacBook Air although Apple tech-support could not find any issues.

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Answer 6

Jan 16, 2025 8:21 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

Exact same thing I saw. With wifi off and the photos all stored internally still saw the white loading ring as if it was downloading them from iCloud- loading ring would stall at 99% for 2+ minutes before I could see the full resolution photo to edit/crop etc.

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Answer 7

Jan 16, 2025 8:44 AM in response to bostonrevere81

I headed off to the feedback link and realized that I hadn't tried the very things I usually recommend. So I booted into Safe Mode, and I didn't see any difference. Then I re-built the Photos Library (close Photos and command-option-click on the Photos icon) and waited several minutes for it to complete. It seemed to speed things up considerably-- enough that I might not notice if I weren't looking out for it. Many pictures had no loading delay at all; some still took 15 seconds or so. I see this almost entirely with Crop Mode. Luckily, I haven't see the 2 minute delay.

I have an M3pro MacBook Pro running 15.2

I'll still leave a message with that link…

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