Photo Library size

[tobindia]

I’ve entirely reconstituted my Photo Library, but I’m a little uneasy about its size as reported by Finder. Before, I had about 30K photos on my MBA (OS 10.15.6), and the Photo Library was about 105GB. Since then, I have built up the Photo Library from scratch via Import with about 34K photos, but the new Photo Library is only 19GB. That's about .5MB per photo. What happened? Why the difference?

 

[ferrarr]

What is "from scratch"? Do you still have the "old" library database? Did you edit files in the old library?

I would open the old, and compare the same file in both libraries?

 

[MacInWin]

In addition, in building this "new" library, did you import the images by copying the files into Photos? In Photos/Preferences, is this box checked?

 

[tobindia]

What is "from scratch"? Do you still have the "old" library database? Did you edit files in the old library?

"From scratch" means that I started from nothing. I held down the Option ket and started the Photos app. In the window that popped up, I clicked on "Create new" and imported over 40K files (.jpeg, etc.). I then ran PhotoSweeper to eliminate duplicates and ended up with my 34K photos.

I compared 2 photos from my old and new databases. An old photo (probably taken with a 3 or 4 megapixel camera) was 499KB on the old database and 476KB on the new. The newer photo (taken with an iPhone 11) was 4.9MB on both databases.

In addition, in building this "new" library, did you import the images by copying the files into Photos? In Photos/Preferences, is this box checked?

I'm not sure what you mean by "copying the files into Photos." I used Photos > File > Import... to import my 40K photos from multiple folders of 2-5K photos at a time.The Photos/Preferences that you referenced is checked.

 

[tobindia]

I just noticed when I ran Diak Utility that I have Macintosh HD (11.29 GB Used) and Macintosh HD - Data (197.05 GB Used). I don't think that I had Macintosh HD - Data before. Could that have something to do with this? I ran Disk Utility First Aid against both of those volumes with no problems.

 

[chscag]

If you have updated macOS to Catalina, your drive is shown like this:

Macintosh HD (read only system)

Macintosh HD Data (your home folder, applications, etc. you have read/write permissions here)

 

[MacInWin]

To add to what Charlie said, when you look at the drive(s) in Finder, the system merges the two volumes into one, Macintosh HD. Again, that is from upgrading to Catalina and is for additional security on the system drive.

 

[IWT]

@tobindia,

As far as the Mac’s Hard Drive is concerned, all is well. Don’t worry about nomenclature and the subdivisions created by Upgrading to Catalina. Ignore and move on

As regards your Photos Library, the reduction in size may be related to your use of PhotoSweeper. It obviously found duplicates as you asked it to and maybe it was over zealous and maybe it/you deleted some originals along with the duplicates?? Whatever, I think you are probably all set up now and ready to go.

Ian