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Friday, January 22, 2021
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Google Axes Support for Picasa, Redirects Longtime Users to Photos

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'Picasa logo'

Starting March 16, 2016, Google will no longer provide support for Picasa.

The web search giant was at last able to pick one photo managing application over another, and the winner is the thoroughly groomed Google Photos. According to a recent report, Google axes support for Picasa, redirects longtime users to Photos.

Google said Feb 12 that it would end support for Picasa app for PC on March 16. Moreover, users that stored and managed their photo albums via Picasa Web Albums are encouraged to switch to Photos in the meantime.

Ending support for Picasa app is not a tragedy because the software has rarely seen a major update in recent years. And users can safely use the app without any constant updates. The tragedy is about to happen for Picasa Web Albums users, whose metadata is not that easy to move from one web service to another.

Anil Sabharwal recently said that the company was aware of the amount of time and dedication users have invested in storing and managing their photos via Picasa. As a result, the developers are trying to figure out a way to make the transition as painlessly as possible.

You will be able to download Picasa app for desktop until March 16, after which the app will still remain operational. Nevertheless, don’t expect any updates for the dated software beyond that date.

If you want to move your photos to Google Photos you can download an uploader app for desktop from Google Photos’ site.

But for users of Picasa Web Albums the situation is more complicated. Many of these users have stored precious metadata on their photos for either organizational or sharing purposes. Plus, people might have posted comments on specific photos. So, it would be rather hard to save all the data and somehow store it on Google Photos.

Google announced that photos on Picasa Web Albums have been already archived and transferred to Google Photos. So, you can basically log in your Photos account to have access to your Picasa photos and videos. But there is no word yet on the metadata’s fate.

Plus, there are some die-hard fans of Picasa Web Albums that would not want to make the transition for all the reasons in the world. For these people, Google is currently looking for a solution that will allow them to access their favorite photo managing service.

The company was not very specific on the solution, it only said that it would offer a ‘new place’ where users can view, download or erase their albums but without the option to create new albums or edit the existing ones.

Image Source: Wikimedia

Google Announced Google Photos Reached Two Milestones

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Google announced Google Photos reached two milestones. The photo uploading and storing service is almost half a year old. But that doesn’t mean it can’t grow as much as others have in at least double the time.

Google announced Google Photos reached two milestones. The photo uploading and storing service is almost half a year old. But that doesn’t mean it can’t grow as much as others have in at least double the time.

Google announced Google Photos reached two milestones. The photo uploading and storing service is almost half a year old. But that doesn’t mean it can’t grow as much as others have in at least double the time.

The two milestones announced by Google are that over 50 billion photos and videos have been uploaded on the Google Photos spinoff. At the same time, Google Photos just reached 100 million active users per month. That is big news for the company.

Splitting from Google+, a platform with not much success (some may argue), Google Photos is already ahead of main competitors Flickr, iCloud, or Carousel – offered by Dropbox. With an overarching presence across platforms and apps on Android, web-based and iOS, it’s easy to understand how the army of Google users would have switched to the unlimited photo service.

Especially since Google Photos has been hailed ever since the service’s launch in May as a simple to use, user-friendly, intuitive photo service. All the features present within other similar services have been brought under one umbrella, designed for efficiency and user content.

So Google announced Google Photos reached two milestones. Why all the fuss? Mainly due to the fact that Google’s photo service has only been launched in May. In contrast, Twitter and Pinterest were racing toward the 100 million user benchmark for approximately five years each. Instagram, one of the most popular photo services out there had to wait for over two years until 100 million users joined.

Certainly Google had a jump start anyhow, with users on the Google+ Photos platform migrating to the reinvented Google Photos service. At the same time, any user with a Google account has easy and unlimited access to Google Photos. Nonetheless, making things simple and keeping the sign-up procedure as uncomplicated as it gets translated in a good start for Google with new users as well.

It’s already a known fact that users tend to stick around when a photo service meets their requirements and ranks above competitors. This alone should spell clearly why Google announced Google Photos reached two milestones in such a short period of time.

Wondering about some hard data? Well, 50 million photos and videos uploaded since May. 3,720 TB freed on users’ devices thanks to the auto-upload feature. And 100 million active users each month in just under half a year. 

Photo Credits: Flickr

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