When I try and move an old Photo library to the trash it just keeps deleting for days. How do you get rid of old photo libraries? I am having trouble setting up a new system Libray so I just want to start new. The libraries I want to delete are on an external library. I have even tried to reformat the external drive but it says photos won't unmount.
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
Original Title: Deleting a photo library
iMac 27″ 5K, macOS 13.7
First, how is your 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.
Depending on the format, you may be dealing with permissions. Do you get an error message?
If you just want to erase the Library, you could re-format the drive.
Let us know about the drive…
Are these libraries on the Time Machine drive?
Have you tried unmounting the drive with Disk Utility's Unmount button? Then try reformatting the drive.
Another method is to drag the drive to the Trash bin several times. At some point you'll see the option to Force Unmount the drive. Then try the erase and format in Disk Utility.
Unable to delete old Photo libraries on external drive
