Apple Photos export error on iMac after Golden Gate 27.0 update

Try these things:

• Restart the computer (of course)
• Re-start in Safe Mode. This bypasses certain potentially disruptive processes, and it often helps. Safe Mode is different for different computers, so see this: 

           Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support 

• Use another library if you have one, or make a small test Library with a few pictures in it and see if the same thing happens. You can create a new Library by closing Photos and then option-clicking on the Photos icon.

Can you tell us

1. 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?
2. Are you using iCloud Photos to synchronize your devices? If so
3. …Do you have “Optimize Storage” checked in Photos’ Settings
4. …Do you see all your Mac’s Photos  pictures at iCloud.com?
5. …Have you checked to see if the Apple Account is really really the same on the Mac and at iCloud.com?
6. …What is your storage at iCloud.com? At System Settings>[name]>iCloud>Storage , my Mac says 176 GB of 200 GB used. What does yours say?
7. What is your storage on this Mac? At System Settings>General> Storage, my Mac says 745 GB of 1TBB used. What does yours say?

dlincolnb wrote: …My current M3 iMac has 24 GB RAM with 2 TB SSD. Checking that storage a second ago, I see I have 1.49 TB available. I have around 10,000 photos on my iMac at present, presumably all internally stored. (I don't THINK I need to select "optimize storage" at this point?)

You need to keep at least 15% free, so your storage is fine.

I use the iMac's Apple Photos app to receive and hold and modify and export all photos. All photos are accessed in that app's Library. I used up the default and free 5GB iCloud storage years ago, then paid for more storage but I never consciously saved any photos or documents to iCloud...iCloud just did its thing (and I rarely if ever consult it). After a couple of years of paying the $0.99/mo extra iCloud storage fee I cancelled it a couple of years ago

If you have iCloud Photos turned on in Photos' Settings>iCloud

then Photos will be trying to send pictures to iCloud Photos and not be able to finish. This could cause big problems. Be sure to have iCloud Photos turned off.

I will look into Safe Mode startup!

That's a good start. It might fix things; otherwise it may eliminate some possibilities.

You're Photos Library should be in your Pictures folder, probably named "Photos Library.photoslibrary."

I have a 2TB Western Digital Passport portable SSD drive that I have yet to use.

You should format the drive as APFS using Disk Utility. Drives usually come formatted in ExFAT which OK for storing stuff, but it's no good for real Mac operations. You should use the Mac's Time Machine to back up your system.

For some light reading, try this:

Basic Concepts and Terms About Photos - Apple Community

See how things go and let us know…

dlincolnb wrote: …unchecked "Download Originals to this Mac" since I assume this is a related iCloud function and I don't use iCloud on my Mac. (When I did this I got a message saying it would delete "24 low-resolution photos" so whatever those presumably old photos are, no biggie.

It does this for one of two possible reasons: #1- if you had "Optimize Storage" checked, then Photos saves room on the Mac by keeping low resolution copies to see on the screen, and the full sized versions are stored at iCloud. If this is what happened, then the full sized copies are still at iCloud and can be downloaded. #2- if you have some pictures transferred by cable with, maybe, iTunes, then those are treated as temporary copies of what you keep on the Mac, so they are dumped since they can't be edited, trashed, or copied to iCloud.

2. Safe Mode. I got the same error message.

Drat!

3. I created a Library 2 in Photos per your suggestion but I'm a bit stymied as to how to, as a test, move the photo that won't export to desktop to this new library to then try exporting to desktop.

In the new Photos Library you can use use File>Import and select the old Library. It will let you pick the pictures to import. It may balk at problem pictures, but that would be useful information.

Hello Richard, many thanks for your reply and wisdom! I'm not exactly an iMac techie, although I've owned a desktop Mac for the past 15 years. My current M3 iMac has 24 GB RAM with 2 TB SSD. Checking that storage a second ago, I see I have 1.49 TB available. I have around 10,000 photos on my iMac at present, presumably all internally stored. (I don't THINK I need to select "optimize storage" at this point?) I use the iMac's Apple Photos app to receive and hold and modify and export all photos. All photos are accessed in that app's Library. I used up the default and free 5GB iCloud storage years ago, then paid for more storage but I never consciously saved any photos or documents to iCloud...iCloud just did its thing (and I rarely if ever consult it). After a couple of years of paying the $0.99/mo extra iCloud storage fee I cancelled it a couple of years ago because I got irritated with subscription fees. It just seems to me that as soon as I moved to GG 27.0 and doing everything I've always done with uploading photos from my camera and then modifying them in Apple Photos, when I try to move SOME photos to the desktop, I now get the "Export complete with errors" screen, saying the "export operation failed to create a file" for that JPEG photo. I restarted the iMac more than once, no change. I will look into Safe Mode startup! We're an Apple house, with 2 iPhones and 2 iPads (and maybe Apple TV later this fall.). I have a 2TB Western Digital Passport portable SSD drive that I have yet to use.

OK Richard, some updates for you:

1. per your instruction, I checked and my iMac was indeed set to automatically upload to iCloud, so I unchecked that box. I also unchecked "Download Originals to this Mac" since I assume this is a related iCloud function and I don't use iCloud on my Mac. (When I did this I got a message saying it would delete "24 low-resolution photos" so whatever those presumably old photos are, no biggie. Of course, all my Photos uploading, and storing and exporting to desktop has gone smoothly for years, right up to when I moved to OS GG a couple of days ago. Coincidence or ?
2. I restarted in Safe Mode--the procedure was slightly different from what you offered, but I got there. I went into Photos, selected one photo in my original Library that previously didn't export to desktop (got that error message) and tried to export it again while in Safe Mode. I got the same error message.
3. I created a Library 2 in Photos per your suggestion but I'm a bit stymied as to how to, as a test, move the photo that won't export to desktop to this new library to then try exporting to desktop. It isn't immediately clear to me how to switch between the 2 libraries and/or click and drag the one known "troublesome" photo from old library to the new Library 2. If that particular photo file is somehow corrupted (Apple gives no hints, just "unknown"), this test may be academic?

Hi Richard---another update for you, if any of this info makes sense to you. I took about 30 new photos today with my Sony mirrorless camera. Uploaded them to Apple Photos (V12.0 (911.0.134) in my M3 iMac as usual. Photos transfer went fine. I use the Apple Photos tools to improve some images ("Auto" plus boosting selective image parameters like Brightness & Saturation. I crop some images, I perform some cleanup functions with some (image retouching and/or removing things in the photo). I move the combination of photos/image files to a folder I created on the desktop. I get (again) a message after the process completes:"the export operation failed to create files for the following photos" (7 photos of 23 photos exported to that folder). Going back to my Library in Apple Photo, I manually drag one "test" photo of the ones I took today from Library to desktop. It moves immediately, no problem. I then try to move a cropped and edited version of that same photo to the desktop, I get the error message. I do the "Repair Library" again for Apple Photos, and when it finishes I try the same test with the same 2 photos, and I get the same results. It's starting to look to me like the Apple Photos editing may somehow be corrupting a given photo file? I'm assuming it's not something with my camera, which hasn't had any firmware change. I did upgrade to Golden Gate last week and that's when this error message thing seemed to begin. I'm still scratching my head on this, and it's no fun playing Russian roulette when trying to move photos to folders or try to export them to CVS for making 4x6 prints, only to intermittently see the "no can do" message.