
There may be some times when trying to view a library in PowerPhotos where you receive a message saying that the library database is locked. The most common reason for this is if the library is still open in the Photos app itself. Since Photos has the library open, PowerPhotos can’t read it until Photos closes the library. In this case, you should be able to just quit Photos, and PowerPhotos will then be able to read the library.
If Photos is already closed, and you’re running macOS 10.12 Sierra or later, then the message may be a result of the new face and object recognition features that were introduced in Sierra.
When a library is first migrated or updated to the Sierra version of Photos, a background process starts analyzing all the photos in the library, and that process stays open even if Photos itself has quit. This presents the same problem with PowerPhotos being unable to open the library, except there is no simple way to tell the background analysis to stop, and Photos doesn’t display any obvious progress information on how long it will take.
If you are receiving this message while Photos is closed, your options are:
If you continue having trouble reading a library even after performing these steps, please contact us at support@fatcatsoftware.com for further assistance.