How To Fix Photos App Not Working in Windows 11/10?

The Photos app is what you will use to view photos unless you change it to something else as default. The Photos app on Windows 11 is pretty good-looking and comes with a tonne of features including image-filtering options. Unless the app is not working, everything seems to be working just fine.

The problem starts when you encounter the Photos app not working on Windows 10/11. If that is something you are facing too, here’s a list of troubleshooting methods you can use to fix the issue.

Also Read- Fix Widgets Not Working On Windows 11

1. Scan for Corrupted Files

Just to make sure it’s not the corrupted files you are trying to open and failing, this method is a must. Open the command prompt on your computer and type the command “sfc /scannow” and let it run. Once the scan is done, you can restart Windows and check if the Photos app commences working properly or not.

2. Use Windows Troubleshooter

Windows has a tonne of tools that you can use to fix certain software issues. If you are struggling with the Photos app as it is not working on Windows 10/11, you can use a troubleshooter to check what’s wrong and fix it accordingly.

1. Navigate to the Settings and proceed to Update & Security >> Troubleshoot >> Additional Troubleshooters.
2. Next up, you need to find the “Windows Store Apps” for troubleshooter so click on it and Run it.
3. Wait for the results to check what could be wrong. 

3. Update Photos App

If you are a Windows user, you must know that outdated apps can make or break things. In this case, the outdated Photos app broke the app as it is no longer working. To counter it, you can update the app and check if that helps.

1. To update the Photos app, head over to the Windows Store.
2. Search for Microsoft Photos and check if there’s an update available. 
3. If yes, download and install it right away.

4. Get the Latest Windows OS Update

To be honest, Windows OS simply gets too many updates and it is often annoying. On the contrary, leaving a Windows update pending can cause issues such as the one you are facing with the Photos app right now. Thus, a quick update should fix the problem if at all it was caused due to outdated Windows OS.

1. To update Windows OS, go to Settings.
2. Proceed to “Windows Updates” and tap on “Check for updates”.
3. If there’s an update available, you can download it and install it.
4. Restart your Windows 10/11 PC and check if the Photos app is working properly or not. 

5. Reinstall the Photos App

Struggling to get the app working on your device and yet failing? Well, you can remove the Photos app altogether and reinstall it. This can fix temporary glitches and bugs that were preventing the app from running on your system. Here’s how it works.

• First, open Windows PowerShell on your PC and select “Run as administrator”.
• Enter the command 

“Get-appxpackage *Microsoft.Windows.Photos* | remove-appxpackage” without the quotation marks and hit enter.

• Once the Photos app is completely uninstalled, you can go for installation. 
• Open Microsoft Store.
• Search for “Photos” and install it.
• Verify if it is working now or not.

6. Reset the Photo App

You can’t get Photos to run on your system so you can try resetting the app. This can potentially fix the issue and here’s how it goes.

1. Firstly, go to Settings >> System >> Apps & Features.
2. Next, search for Photos and tap on it >> proceed to Advanced Options by tapping on 3-dots menu.
3. Scroll to find an option to “Reset” the app.
4. After resetting it, you can restart the computer and try once again. 

7. Check for Permissions

You need to permit the system to allow viewing and modifying photos using any UWP such as Photos. A system error or minor or if someone changed the permissions can cause issues running the app. You can check out the settings on your PC using these instructions. 

1. Open This PC app on your computer.
2. Proceed to “Program Files” under “Windows (C:)”.
3. Right-click on it to proceed to “Properties >> Security”. 
4. Highlight “All Application Packages” and check out its permissions. It must be checkemarked to allow “Read & execute”, “List folder contents”, and “Read”.
5. Back up to “Windows (C:) >> Windows >> Right-click on it and select “Properties >> Security”. Make sure options “Read”, “read and Execute”, and “List Folder contents” are allowed.
6. Check if this has resolved the issue or not. 

8. Use Alternatives

Unless you can’t get the Photos app up and working, you will have to resort to using an alternative like the usual Windows Photo Viewer. You can download many new Photos applications from the internet and Microsoft Store, which won’t be an issue.

There are Some the popular photo viewers, such as EaseUS MobiMover, Apowersoft Photo Viewer, IrfanView, among others.

Closing Words

With this, I wrap the post to fix Photo app not working issue on Windows 11 and 10. Let us know which method helped you and which failed. If you have any other method which works well to fix the Microsoft photo app, let us know in the comments.