Photos App slow on 2017 iMac Pro after upgrade OS to Big Sur (macOS 11)

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Photos App slow on 2017 iMac Pro after upgrade OS to Big Sur (macOS 11)

I upgraded to macOS 11 a few months ago and now I typically experience MAJOR slowdowns while using the Photos app. It will frequently take several minutes to display a new photo gallery while switching from one gallery to another (not always). It may also take a few minutes to launch. Things usually improve after using the app for 30 minutes or so, but it is basically unusable for extended periods of time. This never happened with previous versions of the macOS, but I’m also not certain these problems coincided exactly with the macOS upgrade.

I have cloned a copy of the Photos library to my 2020 M1 MacBook Pro and the app lunches instantly and responds with lightening speed — incredible performance! My laptop has 16 GB of RAM and my iMac Pro has 32 GB.

My library has 55k photos and all galleries are “smart” — using keywords (probably ~1000 galleries). The iMac has a 1TB internal flash boot drive (APFS). All my data (including the Photos Library) are on several Thunderbolt external spinning disks formatted as Mac OS Extended (journaled). The laptop uses the built-in 500 GB APFS boot drive.

I was wondering if Apple has optimized the Photos app for the M series of processors at the expense of Intel processors, but this seems unlikely. I also wondered if APFS format would be better for the external drives, but I understand that APFS format may actually degrade performance of spinning disks.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

David

Posted on Oct 20, 2021 9:12 AM

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Answer 1

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TonyCollinet

Level 7

23,909 points

Oct 20, 2021 9:41 AM in response to David Strait

Hi

MacOS extended is the best format for spinning drives.

The only suggestion I can make is to check the drive the library is on using disk utility - first aid - to check if there are any problems.

It might also be worth taking a copy to one of the other spinning drives to check it on a different one.

Also, make sure you are on 11.6 (latest version)

Also try in safe mode.

I have an archive library on a spinning drive. It can take a few seconds to open (Maybe up to 15 or so if it hasn't been opened for a while) but then is pretty snappy.

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Answer 2

David Strait Author

Level 2

450 points

Oct 20, 2021 10:44 AM in response to TonyCollinet

Great suggestions… I should have mentioned I had already used Disk Utility previously… it didn’t indicate any problems. Your suggestion to try from a different disk was very helpful… although I had some very weird results. I already had a copy of the library since I use CCC for daily backups.

I launched the copy and it took nearly 30 minutes to launch, so I wasn’t too encouraged. However, it was quite responsive once it launched. I quit, then relaunched. It launched immediately and remained responsive thereafter. I guess it had a lot of “house-cleaning” to do on the first launch (?).

This made me think the primary disk may be defective and should be replaced. However, I relaunched the primary library (not the clone) and it launched immediately and remained very responsive(!). I restarted the computer and launched the primary library again. It took 2-3 minutes to launch, but was then responsive… I can live with that! I relaunched the same (primary) library and it launched instantly.

Now I am unsure if there is a problem with the disk. I will continue to use it “as is” and see if the slow performance returns, but I am still puzzled what caused the issue (and why it took 30 minutes to launch the copy the first time!).

I would be glad to hear any further insights on this… particularly if this sounds like a bad disk.

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Answer 3

David Strait Author

Level 2

450 points

Oct 24, 2021 9:34 AM in response to TonyCollinet

I rechecked the disk a 2nd time with Disk Utility and this time I found some errors (which it corrected). Not sure why it didn't find errors originally, when I was experiencing problems with the Photos App. The Photos App has continued to work properly after it began working as described in my previous comments. It also found (and corrected) problems on the clone of this disk (not sure if the problems were "copied" form the original disk, or a separate issue).

Not sure if I am looking at a problem with the hardware, but will probably replace the disk if the problem occurs again.

Anyway, your comment about using Disk Utility was apparently the correct approach.

Thanks!

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Answer 4

Oct 24, 2021 9:51 AM in response to David Strait

Welcome - thanks for getting back with an update.

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Photos App slow on 2017 iMac Pro after upgrade OS to Big Sur (macOS 11)

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