Users have to switch to Google Photos.
By Dileep Thekkethil
According to an official Google blog post, Picasa desktop application will become obsolete after March 15 and the web albums stored in Picasa web will be no longer accessible to the users after May 1st.
Google had on May 2015 announced its new photo application called Google Photos and since then there were rumours about the search engine giant killing Picasa. The official post read “after much thought and consideration, we’ve decided to retire Picasa.”
The new move is attributed to Google giving more focus on one service, so that users can be offered with better experience and functionalities, both on the desktop and mobile platforms.
For the people who spent time editing photos and saving it on Picasa web, google’s decision has come as a bolt from the blue. One ardent Picasa user posted on Facebook “Oh no I have been an intense user of Picasa on the desktop. What a pain!”
But users don’t have to get alarmed as Google promises that the precious moments saved on Picasa will not be removed overnight. According to the blog post, users can log in to Google Photos and find all the files saved in Picasa there and can continue to upload, edit and download them whenever they want.
But for people who don’t want to use Google Photos and instead want to continue using their multimedia content, such as tags, captions and comments, Google has created a separate platform, where they can assess the Picasa Web Albums. But in this case, users won’t be allowed to upload any new images, but instead will be granted permission to organize, edit and delete albums which are already there in Picasa.
The new changes will start rolling out on May 1, 2016. That said, the desktop application of Picasa will be no longer supported after March 15, 2016. This means Google will no longer come up with any updates to the desktop application but, users who have downloaded Picasa Web can continue using it. Also, people who wish to download the desktop application before March 15 can do so by visiting the Picasa Website.
If users choose to switch to Google Photos, they can continue to upload photos and videos using the desktop uploader at photos.google.com/apps.
Finally for developers, we will also be retiring some functions of the Picasa API. Developers can learn more here.
This is not the first time that Google is closing down one of its features for the sake of popularizing the new Google Photos ecosystem which was first introduced in the last year’s I/O developers conference. The company had shut down Google + photos in lieu of the newer service and linked Photos to your phone’s native camera app.
Picasa was first introduced in 2002 as an image viewing and editing platform with an integrated photo-sharing website. It was first owned by a company called Lifesscape but in July 2004, Google acquired the firm and started offering its services as freeware.