Missing Photos in Migrated Photo Library

Question

Missing Photos in Migrated Photo Library

Hi! I used Migration Assistant to move Photos from a MacBook Air 2013 to a MacBook Pro 2019. Unfortunately, during the migration, some of the photos turned out to be black squares. How do I fill in the missing photos without possibly erasing anything? I should have figured this out long ago, but after using this computer for years and adding more photos, I am now about to upgrade to a 2024 MacBook Pro and need to figure out this issue before I move to the brand-new computer. I really don't want to lose any photos, since I have a lot, and I would be grateful for any insight you could offer. Here's a screenshot of what it looks like.

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 14.7

Posted on Mar 19, 2025 7:43 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Mar 26, 2025 6:54 AM in response to SouthernAngel

The formatting of the external drive is very important. To avoid damaging the Photos Library an external drive must be formatted in either APFS format or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. Additionally, the drive can not have had Time Machine on it since it was formatted. There have been so many problems with using incompatible drives that the newest macOSs won't even allow a Library on a non-Mac formatted drive to open, since there is a chance of damaging the Photos database. See this:

Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support

If this drive is in a an incompatible format, stop running Photos with it immediately! A Photos Library can sit on an incompatible drive, but running it may corrupt the database.

You can check the format of a drive by selecting it on the desktop on in the sidebar, and using ⌘-i to get the info window.

Here, you can seed that mine formatted APFS. I have only 36GB left, so things will be tight…

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Answer 2

Mar 23, 2025 8:07 AM in response to SouthernAngel

I'm not sure that it's all clear to me. It sounds like you have a functioning Library on a MacAir, and you want this Library on a newer MacBook. But you haven't said what OSs are on each device. You haven't let us know about the storage situation on each device, either. You also haven't told us about your use of the "external hard drive"-- specifically, how is it formatted?

If I were doing this, I would use iCloud Photos for the transfer-- you first make sure you have enough storage in iCloud and on the receiving computer; then turn on iCloud Photos on each machine, and watch it happen. Cancel iCloud when finished, if you want.

Any other method would require some information about the operating systems on the two machines.

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Answer 3

Mar 25, 2025 1:49 PM in response to Richard.Taylor

Using iCloud was how this mess started during migration, and it only has about 6000+ photos in it out of my 17k+. A little leery of trying it again. I didn't realize any of that info you mentioned was needed, so I apologize. I actually realized what I did wrong in copying it the other day (didn't drag library onto computer before detatching external hard drive, which is a Samsung T7 2TB. (Not sure how to describe how I formatted it.) So, I now have the 2013 library on the 2024 MacBook, which is running Sequoia 15.3.2 and still has 1.7 TB storage left, since I haven't moved most of my files yet, but there will still be room after. The MacBook Air has about 2 GB left in storage after originally moved to the 2019 MacBook Pro. There's a discrepancy of about 113 pictures after copying the 2013 library to the new Macbook, so I'm not sure what happened there, if I deleted some in the meantime or what. Maybe I can figure the rest out, I hope. Or if you have any insight, please share. But thank you for replying. It helps to have someone at least respond.

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Answer 4

Mar 22, 2025 1:44 PM in response to SouthernAngel

I still have the 2013 Macbook Air, so I copied the Library with no missing photos onto an external hard drive, then copied it (I thought) to the new MacBook 2024. But unfortunately, the missing photos ended up still being missing. And also, when I disconnected the hard drive from the 2024 laptop, the pictures aren't any longer there. Any insight? From the lack of responses, looks like either I'm the only one with this issue, or no one knows the problem?

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Answer 5

Mar 26, 2025 7:35 AM in response to SouthernAngel

The best way to go forward is to make sure you have backups to your Libraries, and then use iCloud Photos to combine them. If you have more than one Library available to Photos on a particular machine, you should make sure that the System is the one you mean it to be-- that's the one that connects to iCloud. As long as you have backups, no harm can be done.

iCloud will upload pictures from each computer's Library, doing some checking for duplicates and corrupt files. In case of corrupt files, I'd turn on the least trustworthy computer's Library first, then the next.