300+GB Photos library displays as only 40GB in the Finder

[mightyjabba]

I recently got a 16" MacBook Pro and decided to set it up fresh so as to avoid as many problems as possible (my previous machine was still on High Sierra). Part of this entailed starting a fresh Photos library for the MBP and downloading my entire iCloud Photo Library to the computer with "Download Originals" enabled. By all appearances, this seems to have worked. The photos are there when I click them and don't have to load, and my overall disk space has gone down by around the expected amount. But if I look at the Photos Library file in the Finder, it claims that it is only around 40GB. Is this just wrong, or is data for Photos stored somewhere else as well?

 

[chabig]

iCloud simply hasn’t finished downloading your originals. It could take a few days or a week or more. When you click on one you’re getting the full res photo. But the ones you aren’t clicking on are still downloading.

 

[mightyjabba]

I don't believe that's the case, although that's not a bad guess. I started the process 3+ weeks ago, and have been monitoring my internet usage. My internet is fast enough that it was able to download everything in a day or two. Plus if that were the case, why would my overall disk space have gone down by 300GB? Edit: Also, Photos does not say that it is downloading anything anymore.
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It occurred to me that I should get a "second opinion" about the size of this file, so I downloaded DaisyDisk and it shows the photos library at 376.9GB versus the Finder's 40.91GB.

 

[qs933]

I'm having the same issue. I have 400GB in my Photos library and Finder shows it as 4.8 GB. If I do a "Get Info" on the folder, it shows "Zero KB" and size = "Zero bytes." The last modified date is a couple weeks ago, even though I've added photos and made other changes since then.

Upgrading to Catalina was a mistake. This is the first time I resorted to starting over with a fresh install, which unfortunately hasn't helped.

 

[mightyjabba]

For what it's worth, my library still shows as 40.91GB in the Finder many days after I originally posted this. Also, the "Created" and "Modified" dates are from Nov 27, which seems odd. This is definitely the library that is being used by the system, though. There's only one library on my disk, and this is the one that shows up when I select "Show in Finder" for the Library Location under the Photos prefs.

 

[morze]

I remember when I first set up my MacBook Pro 16 I had this issue. Although I manually imported all my photos which was about 250gig and in the finder the photo library size was 14gig. Over a few weeks it caught up and the sizes matched/ are similar, I think after it completed indexing/ curating etc.