How to use Picasa-web-albums without being re-directed - August 2016 update

This article explains what has happened to Picasa-web-albums, why it is now re-directing to Google Album Archive, and what you can do about it.



Back in July 2013, I described how many people who started Picasa-web-albums were being immediately re-directed to Google+ photos and what they could to to return to using PWA again without being re-directed.

Quite a few things have changed since then   In particular, Google have:

• Changed their strategy around Google+
• Released Google Photos and retired Google+ Photos
• Changed the Picasa-web-albums re-direct to go to Google Photos instead of Google+ Photos
• Stopped supporting Picasa (announcement)
• Stopped supporting Picasa-web-albums (announcement)
• Released a new tool called Google Album Archive, which gives you access to photos, photo-albums and data about photos that you created in Blogger (and other Google tools) - which isn't available in Google Photos.
• Changed the re-direct on Picasa-web-albums, so that it goes to Google Album Archive instead of to  Google Photos.

That is why you see this:



Instead of this:



when you go to www.picasaweb.google.com.

How to stop Picasa-web-albums from re-directing to Google Album Archive

Google Album Archive is being rolled out worldwide, and once it is enabled for your account, you will no longer be able to use Picasa web albums. You will only have two options: use Google Photos directly or work with pictures only through Blogger's post-editor.

Is there a problem with using Google Album Archive and Google Photos instead of Picasa-web-albums?

There are posts on help-forums etc from people who are unhappy about this change:   Picasa-web-albums and Picasa-desktop had a number of features which Google have simply decided not to provide in Google Photos.   These features include:

• Making slideshows and putting them into blog-posts or websites.
• Embedding Picasa Web albums and photos in blog-posts or websites.
• Linking to photos, albums, and Public Galleries which an URL that contains your usename 
• Photo tags, tagging people, likes, +1's, and Picasa Web comments. 
• Making slideshows.
• Following people based soley on their photo collection
• Viewing public galleries.

Users of the removed features are unhappy with the changes, and they see problems with the new system. Personally, I think that the new system is more complex than it needs to be. There are a lot of details about what you can and cannot do in Album Archive, and these details are not always consistent with the documentation. For example, the documentation says that you can delete photos in Album Archive, but I have at least one album or photo with no delete icon. Other people have reported that their albums are not showing up in Album Archive. Some users are also unhappy because they cannot create new albums, only work with albums that they have already created.

However, I have not found any major issues with the new system that prevent me from using Google tools to work with images for my blogs. Have you?