For most Mac users, a large chunk of the hard drive space is occupied by photos, and that’s especially true in the case of high-resolution photos. To better manage the hard drive space occupied by image files and to make them more accessible, Apple offers its proprietary app “Photos” on all macOS versions. This app helps users organize their pictures in one place, maintain versions (if needed), and sort them based on different parameters.
But like any other app, the Mac Photos app too often faces glitches. Users sometimes report that they’re facing issues while trying to access their photos saved in the Mac Photo Library, and are seeing errors like “the library could not be opened” or “cannot open photos on Mac”. So what could be the reason for this error, and more importantly, how can you resolve it?
Join us as we take a deeper dive and find out the answers to those questions.
Table of Contents
There could be several reasons for this:
Now let’s see how you can regain access to your photos in each of the above situations.
When moving the Mac photo library to an external drive, it is important to update the default path of the System Photo Library to that external drive. Additionally, formatting that drives to macOS Extended (Journaled) or APFS file format is recommended, because that is the default file system supported by macOS. Ideally, the format operation should be done before moving the files on the external drive.
If you haven’t performed either of the two operations, the only way to regain access to your photos is to move them back to your Mac.
Update your account to have the correct access permission as follows:
Photos in your Mac can become corrupt due to many reasons like software incompatibility, outdated Photos app, or conflict between devices like the camera and your macOS system. If any of these cases happen, the Photos app won’t be able to open the images until they are repaired.
The next section covers some of the easiest ways to repair damaged photos on Mac.
Apple provides a proprietary tool for fixing corrupted photos called the Photo Repair Library tool. As its name suggests, this tool can be used to repair damaged photos.
Here are the steps you should follow to use this tool:
One of the reasons why the “cannot open photos on Mac” error arises is outdated Photos app. Users who have upgraded to macOS Catalina or have installed any other major OS update but have not updated the Photos app are more likely to face this error.
To update the Photos app do the following:
Now try opening Photos from the library with the Photos app.
Stellar Photo Repair can fix damaged photos from your external drive, Mac’s internal drive, SD card, storage media used in the camera, CCTV, iPhone, and several other devices. Repairing photos with Stellar Photo Repair is an easy task, thanks to the application’s user-friendly interface. It allows you to repair several photos at one go, saving your valuable time.
This is how you can repair photos that won’t open in the Photos app on Mac.
Image 1 – Add photos to be repaired
Image 2 – Allow the repair process to finish
Image 3 – Preview and save repaired photos
Once the photos have been repaired, you can transfer them to the System Photo Library folder so that you can view them with the Photos app.
Now that you know how to retrieve corrupt photos from Mac, you should not feel stressed if none of your photos are accessible through the System Photo Library on your Mac. Try one of the tricks described in this post to know how these photos can be repaired. If that doesn’t work, you can always use Stellar Photo Repair software to get back your photos.
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