When I attempt playing a video in Photos (8.0) on macOS (Ventura 13.5.2), Photos will occasionally tell me:
Videos with unavailable original files cannot be opened. The original video “IMG_5983.MOV” is either offline or cannot be found. Click “Find Original” to reconnect.
How can I locate “IMG_5983.MOV” when Photos gives names to its files that look like: 0472F3DE-5F86-1478-59EC-836FE208CDBD.mov?
Also, is there a way to count how many such video files are missing?
Photos prefs - is 'Copy items to Photos Library' on or off? [I'm guessing off.] File menu/Consolidate, should attempt to find & bring remote files into the library bundle. This will attempt to find missing items - I'm not sure whether it will stop for each item or just present a list at the end, I have no way to test.
I'm guessing what has happened is that you don't have 'copy items' on, so your actual reference file is elsewhere on your Mac… & quite possibly has been subsequently moved or even deleted - assuming it would be 'safe' in Photos.
Spotlight may be able to find them from the original IMG_ file name, if they were only moved.
There may be differences in response to all this if you have some of your data offloaded to iCloud - again I cannot test this.
