Photos won't copy or delete

SORTED!!

Thanks so much for all your help, Tony (and for your input, Leonie). I just stumbled across the solution, which was that my Desktop was locked - so I couldn't delete from it, copy to it, or export to it. What a stupid little thing to have caused so many days' despair - but I suppose that's typical of Operating Systems, isn't it!

All advice is so much appreciated, and I've learnt a lot about how to store and move photos on the way, so MANY THANKS to both of you.

Very best wishes,

Graham

Hello again, Tony,

I don't have an external hard drive. My "Photo Archive" is on iCloud Drive and "Photos Library" is on Macintosh HD/Users/Jenny/Pictures (it's Jenny because the MacBook was originally my wife's!). I have attached a screenshot of 4 Information tabs which show no Format details, but do show that the "Photos Library" gives me Read & Write permissions, whereas the "Photo Archive" folders don't even show permissions. None of them has the "Ignore Ownership" option.

Hi Tony,

Thanks for replying so quickly. I didn't reply earlier as I realised I had thousands of photos and files trying to sync with iCloud, which might be holding things up. However, after many hours, they're still syncing! So back to your queries:

I was transferring photos by Drag/drop on my MacBook which has a 250Gb HD: normally about 100Gb of this is free, but over the last few hours this has dropped as low as 30Gb, with System Files taking up the normal spare space.

I store my Photos app photos (currently 1,700 photos and 113 videos) on iCloud with full-resolution images downloaded to the Photos Library in my Pictures folder. I have previously copied (by various means) about 15,000 photos to a folder (with many sub-folders) called "Photo Archive" on my iCloud Drive.

Yesterday I was copying and printing a few photos with no problem, then suddenly had a problem with one. After a while I found this was in HEIC format rather than JPG, and thought this was the problem. I then found the same problem with JPGs, often saying I didn't have permission although I am the Administrator. Entering the user password didn't help, and checking the Information tabs showed I did have Read & Write permissions. Many of my photos in my "Photo Archive" won't even show permissions on the Information tab, so something has obviously got corrupted!

Any help would be gratefully appreciated, as it's very frustrating trying to resolve it with Google searches which throw up all sorts of unhelpful and out-dated hints!

Best wishes,

Graham

Hi Tony,

I didn't realise there were quality problems with Drag/drop, so I'll use Export in future - well worth knowing.

I originally set up my other folders on my HD to save space on iCloud, but realise that this is no longer the case as they're now moved to iCloud Drive. I have never really liked the way the Photos app insists on everything in date order, and the fact that you cannot delete photos directly from Albums. However, I shall have a re-think about my organisation once I've solved the current problem,

I have run First Aid (another useful tool I was not aware of) without it finding anything untoward. I have also opened in Safe Mode, with the same problem over permissions. So at the moment I am completely stumped! Is there a way to reset or override all file/folder permissions?

Thanks again for your advice.

Graham

Currently 49.74Gb free (out of 250Gb) on HD, and 77.3GB free (out of 200Gb) on iCloud. All uploading and downloading now seems to be complete, so only problem is that of permissions.

Best wishes,

Graham

Thanks for your message, Leonie. I hadn't realised that about deleting photos from albums, even though I've looked at lots of posts about it! As I said to Tony, I will have to re-assess how I store my photos in future to make sure I keep the quality and accessibility. I haven't enabled Optimise Mac Storage as I prefer instant access to the full resolution photos: this has not been a problem before with HD space - and doesn't seem to be now I'm back to 50Gb free space. Next time I move a number of photos (if I do!) I'll do them in batches to allow iCloud sync to keep up with me.

Best wishes,

Graham

Further update for consideration.

I can delete photos from the Photos app, and they appear in the Recently Deleted folder as normal.

When I try to copy a photo from the Photos app, drag & drop achieves nothing. Copy & paste produces the message "The operation can't be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code -8004).

When I try to Export a photo from the Photos app, a different message pops up "The export operation failed to create a file for the photo identified below", followed by the photo label and "Unknown error (0)."

Does this help, or just add to the confusion?

Graham

Thanks again, Tony. Will follow your suggestions and reply again later.

Graham