I’ve been using iPhoto since the first version showed up on Macs years ago, but I’m getting so frustrated with it I think I need to move to something else. I have about 65GB of photos and Apple says that’s not an issue, but today for example, I tried to add a title to a photo in the db. It took 4 min 6 sec to accomplish this. In all it took about 2.5 hours to duplicate & crop one photo, and download 6 others to my desktop and add them to a FB post. That is so ridiculous, I’m using a 2015 27" iMac, 3.2 Ghz, 8 GB memory, with only safari and photos showing any activity in the monitor.
I will probably. update the computer when the next iMac comes out, but I need to resolve the photo issues before making a transition to a new Mac. Looking for suggestions.
Also note that you can create multiple libraries with iPhoto and Photos. 65GB in one library may be too big. If you can split it into two or three libraries, it may make the app run faster.
As other said, if you are using a modern Mac OS its Photos. And yes, it begins to get very slow with size. I have used PowerPhotos (https://www.fatcatsoftware.com/powerphotos/) to divide the default Photos Library into two or more [sub]libraries. It also can be used with iPhotos
Perhaps, but 65 GB is nothing. I don’t take a particularly large number of photos and my Photos library is 147 GB. I see no performance problems. It was even usable when running on a USB 3.0-connected external hard drive, although it’s better now that I have it on an SSD.
I would strongly recommend repairing the library before worrying about splitting it. Poor performance isn’t normal behavior.
BTW, Lynda, you can just click the heart button underneath posts to say Thank You so there aren’t multiple posts saying exactly the same thing.
For what it’s worth, my current Photo Library comes fo 180GB on my iMac (and 145GB on iCloud–I do use the iCloud option in Photos). I do remember running repairs when I was using Aperture and may have run the repair option occasionally under Photos. But I haven’t needed to recently. I haven’t seen any unreasonable delays performing edits, although syncing between devices can sometimes seem slow. Note that I very rarely import photos not taken with my iPhone.
However, all my hardware is of fairly recent vintage (oldest is my late 2015 iMac) using running on a high-end processor (if there was a choice) and using at least double the minimum storage.
I am confident that you have a problem. My Late 2015 27-inch iMac (4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7) running Catalina doesn’t struggle while using Photos with a 169 GB Photos library. Try the rebuild that Adam suggested. You may wish to start the process before leaving home or retiring for the night as it could take some time. Good luck!
i Just completed 4 days of running PowerPhotos duplicate deletion function and am deleting almost 3K duplicate photos. If nothing else, that’s worth the $$.
Some type of system issue in the Photos app. I’ve done a repair of the database and then run PowerPhotos to reduce duplicates. Now I have to spend time using it to validate the steps taken have resolved the problem.
@opiecook
I would look at perhaps a failing hard drive as a contributing factor along with a corrupt database of the Photos app (as previously suggested).
I have same iMac with Retina screen and got an Apple certified repairer to replace the hard drive with a 1TB SSD. I used Carbon Copy Cloner to copy the data onto the new drive before giving to repairer. Picked up iMac next day and back up and running with no set up time. $200 gets you an almost new iMac with comparable speed to my new 2019 hybrid Hard drive 2TB iMac. No sluggishness at all with 50GB iCloud Photos Library on either Mac (or iPad or MBPro 2014 model.
That’s a good thought. I had the Mac into the shop last fall and they found nothing wrong with it. They actually did a complete reset and restore on it, and still found nothing wrong. I’m still considering a new iMac if they come out with one this year. My old Mac is a 2010, which my husband uses, but it can’t run all the same apps. If I get a new one, we could replace his and I’d get a new one with a faster processor and I’d upgrade the RAM. ll depends on what Apple is doing re: the desktop version.
Lynda
Re upgrading the RAM … 8GB works just fine with a SSD. Try it before spending more $$$ on RAM which probably won’t make any perceivable difference to most users.
Re RAM/SSD: We’re getting a bit off topic, but: I have a 15" mid 2012 MBP (a truly great machine). It was a bit sluggish when I bought it used. I upgraded to 16gb RAM first and that helped a bit, but installing an SSD was almost magical. It became almost lightning fast, an amazing difference. Extra RAM is always nice, but if you need to be frugal, do the SSD first and try it out. Maybe that will do it.
