Apple photos stuck - how to reset?

[pm-r]

I TRY to live on $1K social security disability income.
These guys are so great at helping me!

My concern, and that of some others as Jake mentioned previously, is that you run the risk of losing all your data with us on doing problem that has now been going on for more than a week.

I am sure there is probably a knowledgeable Mac helper in your area that could help you and possibly not even charge you much if anything if you explain your financial circumstances.

I used to do such Mac help work and often times my service was gratis if I knew the client's financial situation, and I am sure there are others out there that do the same. There may even be a local Mac members (MUG) club in your area you could contact for some assistance.

Anyway, good luck with your project, and I hope you get it all working and don't lose any data.


- Patrick
=======

 

[IWT]

that didn't work.

So, short explanation:
backed up specific folders on mini to time machine. (after 3 hrs of googling, trying, etc.)


yes, please do.



yes

View attachment 36513

i don't remember that.

Here are the links that I referred to:

Carbon Copy Cloner: macOS Backup Software - Bombich Software

bombich.com

SuperDuper!

Although each of these has a free trial period, they are pay-for apps. Both are excellent; but PLEASE read the instructions on their respective web sites because they tell you exactly how they work and how you set them up.

As I said previously, to back up your 8TB EHD, you will need a new, empty EHD of roughly similar storage. But your 8TB EHD, has tons of free space so maybe you can get away with something less than 8TB.

Glad to see that you have at least 98GB free on your Mac. Good work.

Ian

 

[MacInWin]

I'm confused. In post #8 your image shows 4.88TB of the 8TB drive available. That means there was about 3.12 TB of data space used. But in post #39, it shows 7.82 available, or about 0.18 used. What happened to the rest? You said you copied the pictures to that drive, but now they don't seem to be there. Did you do something to erase them from that drive? Somehow, I feel we are missing some key information. We can't see what you are typing, so you need to be very, very specific when you do something or we won't be able to give the best advice.

 

[searchless1]

My concern, and that of some others as Jake mentioned previously, is that you run the risk of losing all your data with us on doing problem that has now been going on for more than a week.

I am sure there is probably a knowledgeable Mac helper in your area that could help you and possibly not even charge you much if anything if you explain your financial circumstances.

I used to do such Mac help work and often times my service was gratis if I knew the client's financial situation, and I am sure there are others out there that do the same. There may even be a local Mac members (MUG) club in your area you could contact for some assistance.

Anyway, good luck with your project, and I hope you get it all working and don't lose any data.


- Patrick
=======

my son bought me this:

Seagate Expansion 10TB External Hard Drive HDD - USB 3.0, with Rescue Data Recovery Services (STKP10000402)​

219.99​

 

[IWT]

my son bought me this:

Seagate Expansion 10TB External Hard Drive HDD - USB 3.0, with Rescue Data Recovery Services (STKP10000402)​

219.99​

Very nice too. What were you planning to do with this new EHD?

Ian

 

[searchless1]

I'm confused. In post #8 your image shows 4.88TB of the 8TB drive available. That means there was about 3.12 TB of data space used. But in post #39, it shows 7.82 available, or about 0.18 used. What happened to the rest? You said you copied the pictures to that drive, but now they don't seem to be there. Did you do something to erase them from that drive? Somehow, I feel we are missing some key information. We can't see what you are typing, so you need to be very, very specific when you do something or we won't be able to give the best advice.

MY 8T has 180G on it.
my photos are on my computer.
my music is too, but i just saw that i'll have to pay every mo. to keep it. I guess i'll just lose all my music. Music used to be itunes and free.
i just told pm-r that my son bought me this:

Seagate Expansion 10TB External Hard Drive HDD - USB 3.0, with Rescue Data Recovery Services (STKP10000402)​

219.99​

it's coming friday and i'll copy the 8T to the 10T right away.

what kind of connectors are best (fastest) for this?

LOOKING AT THIS, CAN I USE THE 2T TO BACKUP MY MAC? (and cancel the 10T order)

 

[searchless1]

Very nice too. What were you planning to do with this new EHD?

Ian

copy all files on my 8T to it. so i have 2 copies, just in case, like Ian said to do.

 

[searchless1]

In post #19, you said "I now have 129.94 GB available on my Mac."

10G on desktop - the only thing on the mac that has any gigs.

When i click on get info for my HD, it says there are 96.81G available with 4.2 purgeable. I have no idea where they are to purge or how to do it. Could you tell me how to do this?

I took that to mean, that after the copying of the Photos Library and the moving of lots of other data to your EHD, you "gained roughly 130GB of free/unused space.

as i said above ... 96.81 G

So, why is your Mac's drive full?? You did MOVE all your music, files, data etc? Not COPY?

yes

If you haven't rebooted your Mac since the copying & moving, do that now.

done.

And by the way, when I pointed out to you that copying and moving things to your 8GB EHD meant that you had only one version of all that data, I said that you need to backup (BU) that EHD from time to time.

i'll copy all files on my 8T to this new 10T friday when i get it.
my son bought me this:

Seagate Expansion 10TB External Hard Drive HDD - USB 3.0, with Rescue Data Recovery Services (STKP10000402)​

219.99 ​

Of course, you should BU the Mac as well. Time Machine (TM) would seem the obvious choice for that. Have you used TM before?

Yes. trying to do it, but it says there's not enough space on my EHD for it. It's a 2T drive. I deleted all of the former files to free up space. but in the get info it says i only have 76.12G available.

Just ck'd my HD. It has 150G used! Soooo, i need to get a bigger EHD to TM it. ... off to amazon again.

I'm doing TM manually, so it doesn't make a gazillion copies.

So, how big of an EHD should i get?

 

[searchless1]

Very nice too. What were you planning to do with this new EHD?

Ian

MY 8T has 180G on it.
my photos are on my computer.
my music is too, but i just saw that i'll have to pay every mo. to keep it. I guess i'll just lose all my music. Music used to be itunes and free.

LOOKING AT THIS, CAN I USE THE 2T TO BACKUP MY MAC? (and cancel the 10T order)

 

[IWT]

my music is too, but i just saw that i'll have to pay every mo. to keep it. I guess i'll just lose all my music. Music used to be iTunes and free.

iTunes is now called Music and is still free. So any music you purchased via iTunes/Music is yours to keep.

You may be confusing the Music app with "Apple Music" which is pay-for on a monthly subscription. Any music you download from Apple Music is "rented" rather than purchased. All that music remains your UNTIL you stop the subscription and then it is wiped from your Mac.

Once again: any music you bought via the old iTunes app or the new Music app is permanently yours. Subscription to "Apple Music" gives you access to 70 million songs on a rental basis.

my photos are on my computer.

So did you or did you not COPY the PhotosLibrary to the 8TB EHD?? You are correct in saying your Photos are still on the Mac because that was the intention - COPY library to 8TB EHD and keep original Library on Mac - for the time being - ultimately, but NOT NOW, the plan was to delete the Library on your Mac to free up space.

LOOKING AT THIS, CAN I USE THE 2T TO BACKUP MY MAC? (and cancel the 10T order)

If you can afford the 10TB EHD, get it as a BU for the 8TB EHD.

So, how big of an EHD should i get?

As regards Time Machine. You need an EHD with a capacity about 1.5 to 2 times the capacity of your Mac. So, if your Mac has a storage capacity of 2TB, the TM EHD should have a capacity of 3 to 4 TB.

Any more questions or worries

Ian

 

[ferrarr]

I use an external drive with the same capacity as my startup drive. I always have unused space on my internal drive, so there is really no need to have a larger drive than that. Right now on my Mini I have a internal 1TB SSD, so I use 1 (sometimes 2) external 1TB drive for TM backups. Here are what my drives look like.


My startup disk.


And my Time Machine backup disk.

Also, I do use other drives as data storage, and those disks are also backed up as needed, but I have no need to keep them connected at all times.

 

[searchless1]

iTunes is now called Music and is still free. So any music you purchased via iTunes/Music is yours to keep.

You may be confusing the Music app with "Apple Music" which is pay-for on a monthly subscription. Any music you download from Apple Music is "rented" rather than purchased. All that music remains your UNTIL you stop the subscription and then it is wiped from your Mac.

Wow that's confusing. I went to apple music and when i started a song there, it said i had another song playing on itunes. and there are a lot of the same playlists, etc on both. AM has more so i hope i can duplicate them in itunes.

So did you or did you not COPY the PhotosLibrary to the 8TB EHD?? You are correct in saying your Photos are still on the Mac because that was the intention - COPY library to 8TB EHD and keep original Library on Mac - for the time being - ultimately, but NOT NOW, the plan was to delete the Library on your Mac to free up space.

on 8T:
Photos icon.
all of my individual pictures.
(also in my google pictures)

on Mac:
Photos icon.
I was mistaken. there are no individual pix on the mac.

If you can afford the 10TB EHD, get it as a BU for the 8TB EHD.

But there are only 180G on an 8T EHD leaving 7.82 TERABYTES to use. So why get a 10T when i'm only using 180G. I'm not a photographer & i don't think i'll be storing any large files anywhere. Please let me know what i'm missing.

As regards Time Machine. You need an EHD with a capacity about 1.5 to 2 times the capacity of your Mac. So, if your Mac has a storage capacity of 2TB, the TM EHD should have a capacity of 3 to 4 TB.

My mac has a capacity of 245.11G.
Let's say it is using the entire capacity (which it's not, mac "info" says there are 98.84 G free) so i would need 2x that, let's round up to 500G.
So if i need 2x the capacity, i would only need 500G on an EHD. My dedicated TM EHD is TWO TERABYTES.

UPDATE: reformatted the EHD. Says it has 2T available. WooHoo!!! Backing up now

 

[searchless1]

hi Jake!!

I'm confused. In post #8 your image shows 4.88TB of the 8TB drive available. That means there was about 3.12 TB of data space used. But in post #39, it shows 7.82 available, or about 0.18 used. What happened to the rest?

I had transferred EVERYTHING from my mac to the 8T. There were tons of duplicates and i meticulously checked EVERY file - picture, doc, movies, music - to make sure there were no more dups there. That shrunk the space used by quite a bit.

And on my mac I noted - created and named a folder inside the mac folder - Pictures, Movies, Music, etc - and named the folder where the files are now e.g. in the mac music folder there's one called "open with VLC - files in 8T", so i would know where things are and not go nuts trying to find them.

You said you copied the pictures to that drive, but now they don't seem to be there. Did you do something to erase them from that drive?

The photos icon is there. the one that you click on and it shows 12K+ pictures.

My individual photos are inside folders on the 8T that i copied to it from the mac


I'm thinking about using the "individual photos" folder i made on the 8T just for the pics and copying them from the subfolders to that folder, so i have them separate from folders with lots of different things in them.
They are also all in my google photos.

I'm going to have to check google photos for photos i've downloaded on my phone, etc. and get them into the 8T "individual photos" folder AND my "Photos" library.

You may think, "this woman is working tooooo hard".
The mac can ....for her. I came from PC land where i had to create systems for storage.

So, if you can give me some ideas of how to cut down on this whacky system, please do.

Somehow, I feel we are missing some key information. We can't see what you are typing, so you need to be very, very specific when you do something or we won't be able to give the best advice.

did i do it?

 

[IWT]

@searchless1

I applaud your extraordinary effort, your stamina and courage. It is beginning to look like what you've done might even work

It's been really interesting trying to help you.

Ian

 

[searchless1]

@searchless1

I applaud your extraordinary effort, your stamina and courage. It is beginning to look like what you've done might even work

It's been really interesting trying to help you.

Ian

Ian, You've been, and continue to be, soooo helpful!

I'm at the end of this journey - I THINK - and would love to have input from all the other wonderful contributors too - about these last questions, as it will impact how i move forward - easefully or laboriously.

MacInWin, ferrarr, pm-r​

YOU ALL HAVE NO IDEA HOW GRATEFUL I AM FOR YOUR TIME, ENERGY, ATTENTION & CREATIVITY.

questions:

I'm thinking about using the "individual photos" folder i made on the 8T just for the pics and copying them from the subfolders to that folder, so i have them separate from folders with lots of different things in them.
They are also all in my google photos.

How can i find the photos on the EHD? search for extensions? (I want to make sure i have ALL of them and the last thing to do to make sure, is extract copies from those folders)

---

Here's another question:

If you can afford the 10TB EHD, get it as a BU for the 8TB EHD.

(i cancelled the 10TB order, but obviously can reorder or after your input, buy a different one)

my response:

But there are only 180G on an 8T EHD leaving 7.82 TERABYTES to use. So why get a 10T when i'm only using 180G. I'm not a photographer & i don't think i'll be storing any large files anywhere. Please let me know what i'm missing.

Thoughts?

---

And:

As regards Time Machine. You need an EHD with a capacity about 1.5 to 2 times the capacity of your Mac. So, if your Mac has a storage capacity of 2TB, the TM EHD should have a capacity of 3 to 4 TB.

my response:

My mac has a capacity of 245.11G.
Let's say it is using the entire capacity (which it's not, mac "info" says there are 98.84 G free) so i would need 2x that, let's round up to 500G.
So if i need 2x the capacity, i would only need 500G on an EHD. My dedicated TM EHD is TWO TERABYTES.

Thoughts?

---

And:

my response:

I'm going to have to check google photos for photos i've downloaded on my phone, etc. and get them into the 8T "individual photos" folder AND my "Photos" library.

I meant that as the process going forward. But is there an easier way?

 

[pm-r]

I'm at the end of this journey - I THINK -

I'm glad to read that some things are shaping up with successful results and I was beginning to wonder how wrong this thread was going to carry on for... but it looks like it may be coming to an end at post #55, or shortly after in the very near future.

I take my hat off and acknowledge all those who have been helping with the problem.

Anyone still remember the old OS days when working with a Mac was much simpler or at least seems to have been????



- Patrick
=======

 

[searchless1]

iTunes is now called Music and is still free. So any music you purchased via iTunes/Music is yours to keep.

You may be confusing the Music app with "Apple Music" which is pay-for on a monthly subscription.

Hi Ian
Where can i find/download the Music app?

i went here to find it but didn't find it:

‎iPhone Top Charts on the App Store - Apple (US)

‎Find and download top apps and games for iPhone on the App Store.

apps.apple.com

then "View Music in Mac App Store"

I screwed up my itunes directory when i transferred it all to the 8T.Here's what it looks like now: (this is all w/in the "iTunes" folder on the 8T)

 

[IWT]

Your screenshot only shows iTunes which implies that the Mac’s OS is an earlier one than I assumed.

The successor to iTunes is called Music and is found in Applications. It was introduced in Mac OS Catalina. Since then we have had Big Sur then Monterey which is current.

From the details you have under your name, particularly the M1 chip, I assumed your OS was fairly recent.

When Music replaced iTunes, it automatically converted the songs in iTunes to the Music app. Podcasts, videos, books etc were given their own status via Finder. Only “songs” were to be found within the Music app.

Perhaps you could tell us which OS your Mac runs?

Ian

 

[searchless1]

Your screenshot only shows iTunes which implies that the Mac’s OS is an earlier one than I assumed.

my OS is Monterey 12.4

The screenshot is from my 8T. It is called iTunes and the pic shows what is in it although not all, as you can see, there is more.

As I said before, I screwed up my itunes directory when i transferred it all to the 8T. "screwed it up" meaning i transferred it in random pieces and threw it all in a folder i called itunes. (you have commended me on my intelligence, but alas, i can be real stupid at times.

I wonder whether, if i put Humpty back together in the format for the itunes directory (which i can't find anywhere on the net) it would work again.

Do i understand you to say that, even if i did that, and i clicked on whichever file would open itunes, it would open Music?

The successor to iTunes is called Music and is found in Applications.

when i click on my Music app, it opens up

When Music replaced iTunes, it automatically converted the songs in iTunes to the Music app.

I guess i just don't like the new format. It seems very commercial, not as personal.

Podcasts, videos, books etc were given their own status via Finder.

do you mean my computer's finder?

i went here to find itunes but didn't find it:

Music - Mac App Store Downloads on iTunes​

Browse and download Music apps on your Mac from the Mac App Store. The Mac App Store has a wide selection of Music apps for your Mac.
apps.apple.com
then "View Music in Mac App Store"

when i went there, it just had a bunch of apps that can change formats, etc, but no iTunes.

 

[IWT]

The Music app came with OS Catalina and is the default on that OS and all subsequent Operating Systems.

You are on Monterey; therefore it came with that OS as it is an integral part of Monterey. If you have searched in Applications and/or used Spotlight to find the Music app - and it’s not there, then somehow you might have deleted the app or “damaged/corrupted” it when you were dealing with your iTunes/Music library.

As far as I know - I’m happy to be corrected - you cannot download the Music app as standalone app. If it is really gone, then the only way of getting it back is by reinstalling Monterey.

If, however, you do find the Music app - and you did say you opened it but didn’t like it - well sorry but it’s that or nothing. And NO you cannot download iTunes from anywhere. It’s gone and Monterey wouldn’t support it anyway.

And yes - when I mentioned all the other features which previously resided in the old iTunes - these will be found by opening the Mac’s Finder app when an iDevice is attached to your Mac.

I am having trouble working out what you want to achieve; hence my multifaceted reply, trying to cover various ideas you may have.

Why don’t you open the Music app and tell us if all your songs are still there and accessible ie you can play them? Like it or hate it, Music app is the only way to hear your songs - other than third party apps.

Apologies for rambling on a bit, but I don’t really know hat you want.

Ian