IPhoto '11 so slow!!!

iPhoto '11 is so slow that it has become useless. I've not even been able to try out any new features because iPhoto is too busy detecting faces, downloading facebook and flickr albums, spinning the beach ball, and not really sure what else it is doing, but for sure it is not letting me view my photos or do anything with them. I've had to force quit numerous times, and it's crashed a few times by itself. I really hope the programmers will concentrate on stability and performance in an update, or offer some guidelines on how many photos iPhoto can handle easily. Granted I have a large library but with the availability of 32GB SD cards, I am sure many people are going to start having to manage large libraries. Wondering if others with large libraries are having the same slowdown issues with iPhoto '11. Any known workarounds?

iPhoto '11 is so slow that it has become useless.
I've (and many other have) found '11 to be much faster
've not even been able to try out any new features because iPhoto is too busy detecting faces,
Let it finish - it is a one time thing
downloading facebook and flickr albums,
in the preferences set web syncing to manually so you control when it happens
spinning the beach ball, and not really sure what else it is doing, but for sure it is not letting me view my photos or do anything with them. I've had to force quit numerous times, and it's crashed a few times by itself.
Any of these could corrupt your library - try the above suggestions and let the system get stable before going on
I really hope the programmers will concentrate on stability and performance in an update, or offer some guidelines on how many photos iPhoto can handle easily. Granted I have a large library but with the availability of 32GB SD cards, I am sure many people are going to start having to manage large libraries. Wondering if others with large libraries are having the same slowdown issues with iPhoto '11. Any known workarounds?
I have 33018 photos, 218 videos and a 65GB library - not the biggest but pretty good sized - others here have reported much larger libraries - mine works great on a 27" iMac - I do have sharing, item counts and web syncing turned off in preferences
LN
LN

Similar Messages

I have an iMac4.1 and my iPhoto is very slow and the thumbnails correspond to the wrong pictures. How do I fix this? Or is my iMac too old? Will getting a new iMac solve this problem?.

I have an iMac4.1 and my iPhoto is very slow and the thumbnails correspond to the wrong pictures. How do I fix this? Or is my iMac too old? Will getting a new iMac solve this problem?
I realize is only 512MB of memory but I want to make sure that a new iMac will solve this problem. Can the new iPhoto handle 10GB or more of photos? Or do I have to go to Picasa anyways in which case I can buy any computer to do that?

The model of Mac is not partcularly relevant, it's the version of the OS and iPhoto that matter.
iPhoto - since 2006 - is good for 250,000 images.
Regards
TD

IPhoto is extremely slow after upgrading to OSX Maveric

Has anyone noticed that iPhoto is extremely slow after upgrading to OSX Maverick

I've noticed that it isn't.
There are 9 different versions of iPhoto and they run on 8 different versions of the Operating System. The tricks and tips for dealing with issues vary depending on the version of iPhoto and the version of the OS. So to get help you need to give as much information as you can. Include things like:
- What version of iPhoto.
- What version of the Operating System.
- Details. As full a description of the problem as you can. For example, if you have a problem with exporting, then explain by describing how you are trying to export, and so on.
- History: Is this going on long? Has anything been installed or deleted? - Are there error messages?
- What steps have you tried already to solve the issue.
- Anything unusual about your set up? Or how you use iPhoto?
Anything else you can think of that might help someone understand the problem you have.

IPhoto '08 VARY slow

iPhoto '08 VARY slow on my PowerBook G4.

What has a missing file?
You've really got to give us a lot more information than you have been. Terence is very good but he's no mind reader. Can you describe in detail what's going one when you open and try to use iPhoto?
Also select your hard drive and type Command-I to bring up the Info window. There it will tell you how much free space there is on the hard drive. It's called "Available".
OT

Iphoto began running slow right after the last update. I'm working with raw files. when I have an open moving from photo to photo some times it slows way down, Never did prior to last update. Thanks

iphoto is running slow at times. This never happened until I installed the the last update. The program gets slow when I have an event open moving with the arrows back and forth. It doesn't make a difference in full screen or smaller

Try this: launch iPhoto with the Option key held down and create a new, test library. Import a number of raw image files and test to see if the same problem persists.
OT

IPhoto is severely slowing down my computer.

iPhoto is severely slowing down my computer. I have 46,578 photos taking up 218.9 GB on an extra 1TB hard drive. When I have iPhoto open, everything slows down. I get the little spinning pinwheel constantly in every program. When iPhoto is closed, things run perfectly.
What is the best way to resolve this issue? Should I split my iPhot library into two separarte libraries? If so, how do I do that? Or should I use Aperature to manage my photos? Any other solutions?

You might want to ask this question in the iPhoto discussion here.

IPhoto 2 so slow

Why is iPhoto 2 so slow on my G3 laptop. The library takes a long time to open. Running os 10.4.11

Well, pfhannan, you don't give us much to go on.
How much RAM is installed in your iBook?
How much space is available on your hard drive?
How many pictures are in your iPhoto Library? Have you added a lot lately? What's the overall size of your iPhoto Library folder in megabytes or gigabytes?
Have you run the daily/weekly/monthly OS X maintenance scripts recently?
Have you had any recent changes or updates in the software installed on your iBook?
Have any of your other programs also slowed down in the same timeframe as iPhoto?
Have you tried any troubleshooting steps at all?
Fill these answers in for us and we'll see what comes to mind.

IPhoto is painfully slow

The lag time we are experiencing when we attempt to open up and access iPhoto is unbearable. I fought tooth and nail to get an iMac into our house (my wife is a PC person) and now I look like a fool. Can anyone help explain why iPhoto is so slow?

First off, iOS does not run on Macs. Go to Apple menu -> About This Mac to tell us what Mac OS X version you are running.
Secondly, double click the hard drive, and check the GB available and GB used. That will tell us if the hard drive is near capacity. View menu -> Show Statusbar if you don't see the GB allotment in the Finder window.
Check Spotlight isn't indexing. The magnifying glass in the upper right corner is Spotlight. It will tell you if it is.
Do not install any third party maintenance tools, those can slow down Macs.
Tell us how many photos are in your library.
Tell us if your data is backed up.

My iPhoto is running slower and slower.

FYI: I have the fat version of the new 13in MacBook Pro. EVERYTHING is updated. My iPhoto has 600 photos total (9.4.2)
I remember when I first used iPhoto in August. It was VERY fast in every way. Now it operates slower than normal. When I open iPhoto, it opens slower. Editing/zooming in&out on big photos take slightly more time to operate.
So, what do you think? Is iPhoto normally like this or is it because I have added 600 photos in the past months?

That's not a solution but a test. How much free space do you have on the hard drive? If it's less than 10 GB that may be part of the problem.
However, based on the test give this a try: Apply the two fixes below in order as needed:
Fix #1
Launch iPhoto with the Command+Option keys held down and rebuild the library.
Since only one option can be run at a time start with Option #3, followed by #4 and then #1 as needed.
Fix #2
Using iPhoto Library Manager to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
1 - download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.
2 - click on the Add Library button, navigate to your Home/Pictures folder and select your iPhoto Library folder.
3 - Now that the library is listed in the left hand pane of iPLM, click on your library and go to the File ➙ Rebuild Library menu option.
4 - In the next window name the new library and select the location you want it to be placed.
5 - Click on the Create button.
Note: This creates a new library based on the LIbraryData.xml file in the library and will recover Events, Albums, keywords, titles and comments. However, books, calendars, cards and slideshows will be lost. The original library will be left untouched for further attempts at fixing the problem or in case the rebuilt library is not satisfactory.
Note: if you're still running 10.8.1 update your system to the latest version, 10.8.2.
OT

IPhoto running really slow - alt cmd doesn't work, restart neither, library has about 2000 photos

I already tried all options when starting iphoto with alt and cmd pressed - doesn't work
I restarted my mac - doesn't work
I clicked "repair" and "verify" disk in "disk utilities" - doesn't work
My iphoto library has about 2000 pictures, I have a macbook air 11' and the latest version of iphoto. The problem first came up when i imported pictures directly to iphoto from my digicam - iphoto kept on shutting down unexpectedly. Alt+cmd worked then, I rebuilt the library. Since then iphoto is running slow. I cannot even scroll down or up without waiting and getting a beachball.
Please help me - I have no idea what to do!
Thank you very much!

How much free space do you have on your boot drive?
Give this a go:
Using iPhoto Library Manager to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
Download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.
Click on the Add Library button,
navigate to your Home/Pictures folder and select your iPhoto Library folder.
Now that the library is listed in the left hand pane of iPLM, click on your library and go to the Library ➙ Rebuild Library menu option
In the next window name the new library and select the location you want it to be placed.
Click on the Create button.
Note: This creates a new library based on the LIbraryData.xml file in the library and will recover Events, Albums, keywords, titles and comments. However, books, calendars, cards and slideshows will be lost.
Note: your current library will be left untouched for further attempts at a fix if so desired.
OT

IPhoto 6 unusably slow (starting with keywords and then the rest o product)

As I've mentioned in a post in another thread, I upgraded to iPhoto 6 a few weeks ago. From the moment of upgrade, anything associated with the keyword function (applying, searching, even scrolling the keyword box) is painfully slow--60 seconds to 3+ minutes at a time (that's the average--I've had waits of 90 seconds to apply 1 keyword to 1 photo and 8 minutes to apply 1 keyword to 27 photos). Since that last post, I've also discovered that the longer I try to use the product, the slower EVERYTHING in the product gets (other than scrolling the library).
I use iPhoto as a database, not an image editor. To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, the types of things I'm trying to do include:
* apply one keyword to 30 photos
* click on one photo after having assigned a keyword to a different subset of photos
* scroll down one page in the keyword box
* select 4 photos
* scroll one page in the main iPhoto view of photos
* search by keyword
I've re-installed, re-built, and re-started. I can also say that the longer I try to use iPhoto 6 in one session, the worse the performance gets. Yesterday morning I had to keyword 150 photos from a party and forced myself to use iPhoto so they could be searched with another set of pictures already in iPhoto. It took me OVER 1 HOUR to assign an average of 6 keywords to each photo with selections averaging 10-15 photos at a time. I am not exaggerating--I timed it (63 minutes). For the record, no other applications were running: iPhoto was flying solo (I thought running alone might help performance, but it didn't. I'm no software programmer but I have a lot of experience with computers and whatever is tying iPhoto's resources into a knot seems to be between iPhoto and iPhoto or iPhoto and the OS.)
Also, the longer I used the product, the fewer "actions" it saw. So, for example, at the beginning I could click 3 keywords on the same keyword pane view and all 3 would apply to the selected photos (with a still dismal response, but at least I was getting 3 assignments for each response). By the end, only 1 assignment would be "seen" at a time even if 3 were clicked (and the other 2 would be translated into some random actions as iPhoto would scroll the keyword pane and assign a random keyword--not necessarily on the same side or the same position on the screen of the keywords I had actually clicked). The result? The functional response time tripled.
The product is not only much worse than iPhoto 5, it's unusably slow. Sadly, I've already upgraded. So I'm wondering if anyone can tell me:
1) Is there any way to know officially if Apple is addressing this specific problem? I know other people are experiencing this and thought there would be a fix from Apple by now, but nothing.
2) Is there any way to bail out of iPhoto 6 and go back to iPhoto 5? I know there's no official path, but (A) is there any unofficial path and (B) what would I lose?
3) Since iPhoto 6 is the only iLife product I use, I feel especially ripped-off. What I'd really like to do is get a refund and pursue a different solution. Any thoughts there?
G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)
G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Old Toad
Since I last wrote I have:
* Rebuilt the directories with Disk Warrior. The problems I had were 30+ overlaps between iPhoto images and iTunes song files.
This got rid of the 8 minute responses, but performance was still unusably appalling.
* I cleaned out the user caches with OnyX.
No change in iPhoto performance.
* I reinstalled iPhoto. (Because of the overlaps I also tried to reinstall iTunes but it doesn't have an obvious path for that. Given the number of hours I've already burned on this Apple problem I didn't have the fight in me for another one).
No change.
* Per another post in this forum I emptied iPhoto trash, then per Old Toad I rebuilt the iPhoto library with the first 3 options.
Noticeable improvement, but the performance is still dreadful.
* Did a re-install and archive of OS X (per a friend's suggestion) and downloaded all the system updates anew.
No improvement.
So after rebuilding my system from the directories up, re-installing iPhoto, and rebuilding the iPhoto library I'm "back to" 30 second to 3+ minute waits for everything when the Photo Info pane is active. For example, it takes 30-90 second waits for tasks such as:
* changing a tab in the Photo Info pane
* trying to scroll the Keywords tab of the Photo Info pane
* assign 1 keyword to 1 photo
It takes 2-3+ minute waits for tasks such as:
* scrolling the main window (one click in the scroll bar--not dragging) when the Photo Info pane is open
* assigning 1 keyword to 36 photos
* closing the Photo Info pane (AFTER however many minutes it took for the final commit i did before trying to exit)
My observations:
* When the ball is spinning on the screen, iPhoto doesn't "remember" what I do as other applications do, although the Keywords pane will occasionally scroll backward or forward--apparently randomly--in response to a single click anywhere in iPhoto. (And I'm not one of those people who bangs on the keyboard constantly when the computer is busy: I'm talking about a click that might get in before the ball starts spinning on the screen.)
* The first "click" after opening the Photo Info Pane (either the Keywords tab or the first keyword box) is always "free"--no problem with excessively long waits. The second click after after a "free" click always has the burdensome wait times. Occasionally, though, in the first 3-5 clicks in the Photo Info pane the first click after what I'm assuming is a commit does not have the painful wait times. After those first 3-5 clicks, though, every click gets this excessive wait.
* It seems odd to me how consistent the minimum wait is: right around 30 seconds. The click is either "free"--i.e. no perceptible wait time (or a reasonably minimal wait, given the task at hand)--or it's 30+ seconds.
These response times really do make the product unusable for me. Does anyone:
1) Have any other suggestions?
2) Know how I can find out whether this problem is being pursued by Apple?
3) Know of any path out of the product so I can put myself out of my misery?………
G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

PLEASE HELP - My iPhoto is very SLOW.

OK so I installed my iPhoto tonight. I have already been frustrated for the past 8 hours, it's not 5 in the morning still trying to figure out what is happening to it.
First of all, my Powerbook wouldnt recognise my iLife 06 DVD. I had to install it with my iMac G5. That is ridiculous in itself. The DVD was brand new with no straches whatsoever, not only this one DVD. It just would not recognise any iLife 06 DVDs. I know this since I thought the first one was strached and my friend from the store exchanged another one for me. Any other DVDs work fine on my computer. Fine, so I used Target Disk Mode.
What happened next was, I installed it in both my iMac G4 and Powerbook. (I bought the family license if u had to know) Both are running ridiculously slow. Scrolling up and down is like being stuck in traffic jam in Manhattan. Zooming in and out is almost impossible. The loading icon pops up every 2 secs straight after it has just disappeared. Sharing photos is like asking my grandma to run. Never happened with iPhoto 05. My settings are as follows:
PB: 1.33GHz, 1GB Ram 60GB HD
iMac G4: 1GHz, 512 Ram, 80Gb HD
There is hardly any support from my local Apple (Hong Kong), is there any suggestions to how I can solve the problem? The same applies to iMovie and iDVD. SEEMS LIKE THE ONLY THING THAT IS WORKING IS THE iTunes 6 WHICH WAS FREE.i have reinstalled it twice. took everything iPhoto off, and reinstalled it. Did this twice. No difference whatsoever.
any suggestions guys?

hecticboy:
Welcome to the Apple Discussions. You do have a Superdrive in the PB don't you? Also how much free space do you have on your two Macs? What size are your libraries?

IPhoto running extremely slow

I am a new Mac user, bought my first Mac computer, with Tiger and iLife installed. PowerBook 17" G4 100GB HD and 1GB ram. Everything is running good except iPhoto. Every time if I do anything related to iPhoto the computer become extremely slow. I have to wait around 1 to 3 minutes after each action. I want to know if there is any solution to it. Is it hardware problem or iPhoto problem? Or simply just because iPhoto couldn't handle large amount of photos... because I do using iPhoto to manage over 11000 of my photos about 40 GB space...

Hi FAcundo,
Basically the info is here:
I have a 3,000 image library at 3 gigs in size.
I use a Canon camera which does not make larger Makernotes in the EXIF data.
If you want to find out more about the large Makernote problem, visit this site
Apple Macintosh iPhoto 5 slowness
If you do have one of the cameras that have large Makernote files you may wnat to try (iPhoto) Exif Cleaner
-Will more memory help speed iPhoto up. It sure will and many have noted that it has.
-There are steps you can take to speed up scrolling in the iPhoto Library.
   do not use shadows
   do not use outlines
   use white for background
   view by rolls and keep the rolls closed
   when viewing images keep them around 5 or less across in the rows
   choose not to "show photo count for albums"
If you have thousands of images it is also advisable to make multiple libraries. Smaller libraries will load and work faster. Use the Option key when launching iPhoto to create and switch between libraries.
You can also use iPhoto Library Manager or iPhoto Buddy to manage your libraries.
iPhoto Library Manager
iPhoto Library Manager documentation
this page will show you everything you can do with iPhoto Library Manager.
You can also try iPhoto Buddy
You should have a t 15% free space on your hard drive. Things get slow after that.
As an update...iPhoto 6 seems to have resolved this problem for those people who had the Makernote problem.
iMac 800 512, iBook 700 640 Mac OS X (10.4.4) AE, Canon i9900, Canon LIDE30, Canon S2, iPod 3gen, shuffle

Places feature in iPhoto '09 superrr slow! Help!

I've got a very big problem. Places feature in iPhoto 09 is so slow. The thing is that I thought that this problem was caused by slow computer.... I previouslu owned iMac Core Duo. But now I bought the newest one... Alu Core 2 Duo 2.66GHz... And I'm still occuring this problem? Is it possible that there is some error with my library? I exported it from my previous system and selected it on my new Mac when I was starting iPhoto for the first time (with alt button). Can anyone help me? I would be grateful.

Just a few questions to get us started: When you say that you exported your library from your previous system did you copy/transfer the whole of the folder iPhoto Library to the new system without making any modifications to it? How many photos have you in your library? Are you using the same version of iPhoto? You might try some of the rebuild option available when restarting iPhoto while holding down alt and cmd.

IPhoto '11 is slow to open.

Can anything be done to speed its opening?

Maybe What version of iPhoto '11? What are the symptoms?
Generally turning off sharing, item counts and all web services (like facebook syncing for example) resolves slow opening
LN

IPhoto 4 Running Slow

iPhoto has been running slower and slower over the past few months. It's almost intolerable, and appears to slow down everything else running (including the Finder) while open.
I've tried starting a new library which now contains only 50 photos, but that is almost as bad.
Software and system details:
iPhoto 4.0.3 (4H2)
PowerBook G4 1.25GHz, 256MB RAM
Mac OS 10.3.9
Disk (according to Disk Utility) : Capacity: 148.9GB Free: 47.9GB
I have had the hard disk replaced recently, but have noticed no noticeable effects elsewhere and, from memory, iPhoto was slow before this anyway.
Any help would be appreciated.

Many thanks for your response. I realised I'd been a fool and had not repaired disk permissions for a while. I've done this now, and iPhoto moves a lot quicker. However, I am interested in what you say about trashing the com.apple.iPhoto.plist file. What would this achieve? Would it be something worth doing regardless? Other than deleting the caches and repairing permissions are there any other maintenance tasks worth doing?

IPhoto '11 so slow!!!

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