Photos take too long to load on MacBook Pro 2022

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Level 1

5 points

Photos take too long to load on MacBook Pro 2022

I’ve a few high quality pictures in my photos library (~4.5mb each) but when I open them they take too long to load, i.e., too long to get unblurred. If I keep a picture open for few minutes then only it starts to clear up a little bit. My iCloud syncing is turned off and I’ve about 20gb of free storage. Is this how slow the MacBook actually is or there’s more to it?

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: Loading photos on my Macbook pro(2022)

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 15.3

Posted on Sep 21, 2025 8:01 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Richard.Taylor

Level 6

17,047 points

Sep 22, 2025 8:25 AM in response to Brar98

My jpgs from my Nikon average about 21 MB, and this slow loading seldom happens. I have had the slowdown, though, when, like you, my storage was nearly full. I have found that if I have less than 15% of my storage free (less than 150 GB on a 1TB machine,) I have real problems, more extensive than just slowdowns. Apple recommends at least 10% free space, but I think that's not enough.

You need to get enough free storage space so that your MacBook has room to move stuff around. Having a mere 20GB free is asking for trouble. I have a 2 TB SSD drive that weighs about 1 ounce that I carry with my MacBook to holds files I don't need so often. I keep my Photos Library on my internal drive so it doesn't interrupt background scans.

I carry another similar drive for Time Machine backups. At home I have a mechanical drive for Time Machine, as well.

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Answer 2

Old Toad

Level 10

215,322 points

Sep 22, 2025 9:23 AM in response to Brar98

Have you installed and run any "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus or VPN apps on your Mac?

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