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Don't Delete Photos, Without Knowing About The Pain

One of the painful experiences, with Blogger blogs, involves people who make blogs based on photo albums.

Photos are, historically, a cherished souvenir of lifes passages - even in this modern age where a dozen photos might be taken, as opposed to one or two, 20 to 30 years ago. Sometimes, the souvenirs, part of a Blogger blog, are lost.

Even if deleted photos can be restored, a blog may have to be rebuilt - one photo at a time. When restored, photos frequently have a different URL - and the code in the blog post must be updated, to reflect the new URL. For many blog owners, it is simpler to just upload each photo again.

There are several reasons why a photo might be deleted, and cause problems.
  • Deleting photos from Google / Google+ / Picasa.
  • Deleting photos from your other computer.
  • Deleting the account that owns the photos.
  • Restoring deleted photos may not always be helpful.

Deleting photos from Google / Google+ / Picasa.

Photos hosted in Google Photos / Google+ Photos / Picasa, and published in your blog, will vanish from your blog if deleted from Google Photos / Google+ Photos / Picasa. Photos made private in Google Photos / Google+ Photos / Picasa will also vanish from your blog - since blog viewer permission (author / reader) is not the same as permissions in Google Photos / Google+ Photos / Picasa.

Blog owners, seeing personal photos in a public library, may delete or make some private, without understanding the consequences.

Deleting photos from your other computer.

If your other computer aka smartphone is also a camera, you may be tempted to delete photos, once uploaded to Google, to save space. If you are using synschronised photo libraries, when you delete photos from the camera, the photos in Google will also be deleted.

Photos published in your blog, deleted from Google, will also vanish from the blog.

Deleting the account that owns the photos.

Photos published in a blog, owned by a deleted Blogger account, will also vanish. If the account is deleted by Blogger or by the owner, any photos uploaded while using that account will be in a library owned by that account - and will likely be deleted.

Too many blog owners, having transferred ownership of a blog to a more preferred Blogger account, may think to delete the original account - without considering the fate of photos previously uploaded.

Restoring deleted photos may not always be helpful.

Photos in deleted libraries - and photos made private, then public - may be restored to visibility. Restored photos will not always have the same URLs.

Someone who uses HTML mode to maintain the blog may decide to edit each post and correct the URL of each restored photo. Most blog owners though will find it simpler to just upload every photo, using "Insert image", again. This will cause duplication and wasted library space.

The bottom line.

If photos are an important part of your blog, and your account or blog is deleted, be prepared for inconvenience. Avoid deleting accounts or blogs which contain cherished photos, in general.

Comments

Ihor Petrenko said…
Thank. Nice posts)
I get it and question: Why if I remove a photo from an album why does it effect a blog? Who thought that was a good idea?
Chris Guld said…
Do you think the retirement of picasa Web albums will affect the url of previous photos?
Nitecruzr said…
Hi Chris,

Thanks for the question.

Long term, I suspect (hope) that Blogger will ensure that the URLs remain the same - although in May 2016 (when the Picasa retirement is scheduled) I would not be surprised to see some confusion.

There are far too many Blogger blogs, using photos in their content, for Blogger to do otherwise.

Given the advance warning - 3 months - and the importance of the photo hosting as blog content - I suspect that Blogger Engineering will have this change well planned.

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