Photo from external hard drive stuck in Photos on Mac

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Level 1

4 points

Photo from external hard drive stuck in Photos on Mac

I moved a photo from my external hard drive to my desktop. From there I added it to Photos. It won't let me edit the image and when I tried to delete it, it says, "This photo will be deleted from Photos, but will still appear in Messages."

It never came from any message. My iCloud sync is off and it doesn't show up on my phone or in any messages. I'm stumped.

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: Can't Delete Photo

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 26.0

Posted on Oct 10, 2025 8:30 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Richard.Taylor

Level 6

16,921 points

Oct 10, 2025 9:43 AM in response to SMC873

Where is your Photos Library? Is it in the Pictures folder on your internal drive? Is it on your external drive? Is it in iCloud Drive?
Is the picture file still on your Desktop?
This image seems to be in Messages. Do you see it there?

Perhaps you'll answer this one: Do you have more than one Photos Library? Maybe you're looking at a different one than you expect. You can see by opening the Library Chooser-- close Photos and option-click on the Photos icon to see this dialog:

This shows a list of Libraries-- I have several. And it shows the path to each one.

"done a thousand times before…never had this problem" is what my father said about his heart right after his first heart attack. Things change.

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Answer 2

Oct 10, 2025 8:52 AM in response to SMC873

What do you mean by "I moved a photo from my external hard drive to my desktop?" The Desktop is a folder, and if you have Desktop and Documents on for iCloud Drive, then that folder is in iCloud Drive. So this may be confusing. And, by "photo" do you mean a jpg, or do you mean the Photos Library?

Where is your Photos Library? Is it in the Pictures folder on your internal drive? Is it on your external drive? Is it in iCloud Drive?

Where did you see that "iCloud sync is off?"

What do you mean by "I added it to Photos?" Did you use Photos menu File>Import, or some other method? Is the picture file still on your Desktop?

This image seems to be in Messages. Do you see it there?

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Answer 3

SMC873 Author

Level 1

4 points

Oct 10, 2025 9:23 AM in response to Richard.Taylor

I dragged an image (.jpg) from my external hard drive to my desktop. Like i've done a thousand times before. From there, I dragged that image to the Photos icon in the Dock.

I looked up help topics on the web and learned that sometimes this issue happens because iCloud Sync is on and it automatically shares photos between my phone and my Macbook Pro. I verified that it is off on both devices. When I open the Photos icon in the Dock, it's opening pictures that are not on my phone or on my laptop. It's weird. I wonder if its a glitch from the Tahoe update. I've had Mac's for over ten years and never had this problem.

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Answer 4

SMC873 Author

Level 1

4 points

Oct 10, 2025 10:06 AM in response to SMC873

Don't know how it got changed. But that worked. Thanks for the help.

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