Photos taking forever to scan for faces

[chaunce322]

Running Photos on my iMac Pro, which is on MacOS 10.15.5.

I did a clean install of the OS a few weeks ago in hopes of remedying a few issues I was having.

One of which is, both before and after the OS install, Photos seems hung up on scanning for faces. I keep getting this message:

"Photos will continue scanning your remaining <insert number> photos when you're not using the app and your Mac is connected to power."

It seems to be hung up in the 10,000 range (of 23,000 photos we have in our library), and isn't making any progress.

Any suggestions on how to fix this?

Thanks in advance!

Sean

 

[chscag]

We've had a thread on this before. The bottom line is that process is very slow and may in fact take days to complete. And at times will seem like it's not doing anything. Just be patient with it for now and unless something is broken, it should complete in due time.

 

[chaunce322]

We've had a thread on this before. The bottom line is that process is very slow and may in fact take days to complete. And at times will seem like it's not doing anything. Just be patient with it for now and unless something is broken, it should complete in due time.

Thanks, but it was like this for weeks, if not months, prior to me doing a clean install of the OS.

And since then, it's been another few weeks. Should I still wait...?

Sean

 

[chscag]

It seems to be hung up in the 10,000 range (of 23,000 photos we have in our library)

That's a lot of photos to scan for faces. As I said, one of our members went thru a long wait during the same process.

And I suspect that doing the clean install probably caused the process to start all over again.

You do have a iMac Pro running Catalina so your machine certainly has enough power to get thru the face scanning process. Keep at it for a while longer and if it seems like it's not working, it may be time to give Apple a call.

With most if not all Apple stores closed, it's very difficult to get an appointment to have your iMac Pro looked at. Apple is currently referring its customers to local Apple Authorized Repair Centers. The most common ones are the Best Buy stores. Like it or not, the Geek Squad is an Authorized Apple Repair Center.

 

[ferrarr]

Don't forget, if you have videos in the Photos library, it will scan through them as well.

 

[MacInWin]

I seem to recall it ran about 6 weeks or so when I reported the problem here. It did eventually finish. But it really is a very slow process. Keep the system powered up overnight and let it digest pictures. The process runs at a very low priority, so if you do anything, it stops. But overnight the machine gets idle and the process wakes up.

Patience.

 

[chaunce322]

Thanks, all!

I've been keep an eye on the total number of items being scanned, and it is slowly coming down.

I also have my iMac set to sleep in the middle of the night, so I'm guessing it's not making much progress on that front.

I'll report back as it progresses.

Sean

 

[MacInWin]

Sean, if you set the power setting so that the screen goes black but the CPU is still awake, it will process your images during the night. That's how my system is set up.

 

[chaunce322]

So it's been almost 6 months since I posted this, and my Photos app is still scanning photos and hasn't made any significant progress. It is scanning a handful of photos per day, but I still have almost 10,000 photos for it to get through....

Does anyone have any methods to prioritize this task during off-hours? Do I need to shut down all other apps? Turn off the Energy Saver options?

Any suggestions would be most welcome as this is really starting to get on my nerves...

Sean

 

[MacInWin]

Leave the CPU running overnight and whenever you aren't using it. Look in the power settings and make sure the Enable Power Nap is OFF and that the "Prevent computer from sleeping automatically when the display is off" is checked to be ON. Then leave Photos open, but not with the focus (either click the Red or Yellow buttons to take it off the screen, but leave it running. I think those will ensure that it runs 24/7 to get the job done. I don't know how many people you are searching for, but my 12,000 images took a couple of weeks to find 13.