Picasa Fans Urged To Switch To Google Photos

Digital cameras have been widely available in the consumer space for well over a decade, and have only gotten more inexpensive and more accessible as time has passed. With the advent of better quality camera phones, practically everyone carries a camera within reach at all times. The problematic end result for users was what to do with all of those photos in order to clear them out of memory sticks or camera storage.

A number of photo storage and editing services have sprung up to meet that need over the years, and many of them didn’t anticipate from early on how popular they would be with users. Some of them, like Facebook, have already had to revamp their strategies in order to meet the need. Picasa (Google’s storage, editing, and retrieval app) has also faced severe changes that have now limited its usefulness.

Google’s intent was to switch its Picasa fans over to Google Photos, and in doing so they have had to not only produce a better photo experience in the new offer, but also remove all support for Picasa.

Everything about Picasa’s last version (3.9) still works, and users who can’t fathom working with their photos with any other desktop app aren’t going to be left out in the cold. But Google will not only no longer release updates of provide customer support for Picasa, it has actively removed downloads of previous versions from external websites.

But never fear. Google isn’t pulling the plug and walking away. This laundry list of FAQs about what Picasa can still do helps ease the transition, as does the site welcoming users to Google Photos. Those who are interested in making the switch will find their Picasa web albums–complete with captions, comments, etc.–already ported over to Google Photos. If anyone had used Picasa to incorporate photos into a blog, for example, they will find their photos in the Picasa archives.