Photos screensaver not working in Tahoe (MacOS 26.0.1)

[TallTrees]

Hi friends! Yesterday I upgraded/updated to MacOS Tahoe (26.0.1), and most everything appears to be working as expected, save a few weird and random glitches. As a photographer, I have my screensaver set to show a collection of my images, but that feature isn’t working for me. When I go to: System Settings → Wallpaper → Screensaver → scroll to the bottom of the window and select “Other” → Photos → at the top of the window select Options under Photos → choose “Photo Library” as my Source → select my “Screensavers” (or any album), nothing populates.

If I go to the Photos App, all of the Shared Albums are there and populated with images. This same “Screensavers” album works on all of my AppleTVs running tvOS 26.0.1.

Anyone else experiencing this issue? Got a fix for it?

[MaltbyEarl (Earl Beede)]

Not helpful but I do the same thing as you and it is working on my 26.0.1 instance on three monitors.

[TallTrees]

Wow, really!? Well, that’s good to know, as it appears that the issue is with my system, and that it’s not a system-wide bug.

[Shamino (David C.)]

Open Photos and double-check that your library is still your system photo library. If not, change it from the Photos settings:

(image from Photos 10.0 on macOS 15.7.1)

Also, give it some time. If you just upgraded macOS, it may take some time for the system to (re-)index the Photos database. The screen saver might not see anything until that finishes.

[TallTrees]

That was one of the first things that I checked. I’m going to try setting it up in Safe Mode.