Photos isn't saving my retouches

Question

Level 1

19 points

I just spent about 15 minutes retouching an old photo, clicked Done & nothing I had done was saved.

Along with that, retouching gets REALLY slow so I had even clicked Done once then went back to edit it again. NONE of my retouching was saved at all!

What am I doing wrong or is my photos just dumb?

iMac 27″, macOS 15.6

Posted on Sep 6, 2025 5:46 PM

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Answer 1

My first thought is that your Mac has a storage problem. Do you have more than 10% of your storage free?

Can you tell us a bit more?

Are you using iCloud Photos to synchronize your devices? If so
…Do you have “Optimize Storage” checked in Photos’ Settings
…Do you have more than 10% free storage on your iCloud account?
Where does your Mac's Photos Library reside-- in the Pictures folder of your internal drive, or on an external drive? or on a network? on iCloud drive?
What is your storage on this Mac? At System Settings>General>iStorage, what does yours say? Do you have more than 10% free storage on your Mac?
Has this problem always existed, or did it just start? Can you think of anything that changed that might affect your device?
What happens if you

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Answer 2

Level 10

215,454 points

Give this a try in order as needed:

1 - launch Photos with the Option key held down and create a new test library.

2 - import a couple of photos into the test library and see if the problem persists.

3 - close the test library, open your current library and test again.

4 - if it persists log into another user account and run Steps 1 & 2. See if it persists in the other user account.

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