While Picasa as a whole is an absolutely great piece of software, its
implementation of albumns is somewhat less than stellar. It's
particularily bad when you need to move picasa between computers or
change the directory your pictures are stored in. Having spent the
last 3 days trying to do just that, I thought I would pass on what I
learned.
First albumns are stored in what appears to be two locations. The
first location and obvious one is in the Albumns directory in the form
of XML .pal files:
C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Local Settings\Application Data
\Google\Picasa2Albums\[DBID]
The second place they appear to be stored is embedded in the binary
database files in the picasa database directory:
Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Picasa2\db2
From what I can tell, and what I think causes people a lot of trouble,
is that the .pal files aren't the primary way picasa keeps track of
albumns. Rather, albumns seem to be tracked in the database. In fact,
the .pal files are deleted and recreated each time picasa runs. So why
bother having the .pal files at all? First they seem to serve as a
human readable (XML) listing of albumns and their contents. Second and
most interesting, they can be used to *import* albumns into picasa....
sort of....
When picasa starts it reads all of the .pal files located in the
Picasa2Albums folder. Each pal file has a DBID. Picasa seems to do
nothing with .pal files that are in its internal database (db2
directory) with a DBID that it expects to see. However, if it detects
a .pal file with an incorrect DBID, it will try to import that albumn
into its internal database and then spit out a new refreshed .pal when
it closes.
Confusing? Here's the moral of the story, if you want to import
albumns ie have the ability to move albumns between computers you need
to change the filenames to point to the correct location *and* enter
an invalid DBID. What I've done, and what has worked for me is using
the word "null":
Interesting... I used to a lot of .PAL file stuff to move and
resurrect albums. Then, it stopped working. I never had to adjust the
DBID value, though. A year ago, for example, you could just stick
a .PAL file out on a computer with Picasa, and, assuming that the
paths to the photos were right, you'd have yourself an album. Then,
the sad day came when that stopped working... Looks like you've found
a way to get it going again... Good. :-)
Although this just lets us continue to mess around with the innards of
Picasa - Picasa's internal data, cheating like crazy to get things
that *should* be easy to do (but aren't) done. (now there's a tortured
sentence for ya...)
At least, it's good for emergencies... and, conceivably, good for
someone who needs to move their photos to a new drive letter without
going through the hell of having to move the photos to the new drive
using drag and drop within Picasa, having to "seed" new destination
folders with temporary jpegs just to get them visible from within
Picasa.
You do know that the "right" way to move album definitions is to use
Picasa's "backup and restore" feature. But that's *really* limited.
Albums are SO useful. But, as you said, the current implementation
certainly leaves room for some improvements...
Just where *is* this Picasa3 we're all hoping for? :-)
> While Picasa as a whole is an absolutely great piece of software, its
> implementation of albumns is somewhat less than stellar. It's
> particularily bad when you need to move picasa between computers or
> change the directory your pictures are stored in. Having spent the
> last 3 days trying to do just that, I thought I would pass on what I
> learned.
> First albumns are stored in what appears to be two locations. The
> first location and obvious one is in the Albumns directory in the form
> of XML .pal files:
> C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Local Settings\Application Data
> \Google\Picasa2Albums\[DBID]
> The second place they appear to be stored is embedded in the binary
> database files in the picasa database directory:
> Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Picasa2\db2
> From what I can tell, and what I think causes people a lot of trouble,
> is that the .pal files aren't the primary way picasa keeps track of
> albumns. Rather, albumns seem to be tracked in the database. In fact,
> the .pal files are deleted and recreated each time picasa runs. So why
> bother having the .pal files at all? First they seem to serve as a
> human readable (XML) listing of albumns and their contents. Second and
> most interesting, they can be used to *import* albumns into picasa....
> sort of....
> When picasa starts it reads all of the .pal files located in the
> Picasa2Albums folder. Each pal file has a DBID. Picasa seems to do
> nothing with .pal files that are in its internal database (db2
> directory) with a DBID that it expects to see. However, if it detects
> a .pal file with an incorrect DBID, it will try to import that albumn
> into its internal database and then spit out a new refreshed .pal when
> it closes.
> Confusing? Here's the moral of the story, if you want to import
> albumns ie have the ability to move albumns between computers you need
> to change the filenames to point to the correct location *and* enter
> an invalid DBID. What I've done, and what has worked for me is using
> the word "null":
Others have suggested using keywords to tag albums as a way to bypass
the portability and flexibility issues with albums that you point
out. That method sounds atractive to me especially since I also use
Adobe photoshop elements organizer to view the same photos and the
tags are portable between the two applications.
The search funtion in Picasa in my experience is extremely fast even
with hundreds of thousands of photos (a second or two) so one can
search for an album identified with tags quickly. The disadvantage
is
having to remember the keywords associated with albums or cut and
paste them from somewhere as apposed to the single click access to
albums in Picasa.
> While Picasa as a whole is an absolutely great piece of software, its
> implementation of albumns is somewhat less than stellar. It's
> particularily bad when you need to move picasa between computers or
> change the directory your pictures are stored in. Having spent the
> last 3 days trying to do just that, I thought I would pass on what I
> learned.
> First albumns are stored in what appears to be two locations. The
> first location and obvious one is in the Albumns directory in the form
> of XML .pal files:
> C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Local Settings\Application Data
> \Google\Picasa2Albums\[DBID]
> The second place they appear to be stored is embedded in the binary
> database files in the picasa database directory:
> Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Picasa2\db2
> From what I can tell, and what I think causes people a lot of trouble,
> is that the .pal files aren't the primary way picasa keeps track of
> albumns. Rather, albumns seem to be tracked in the database. In fact,
> the .pal files are deleted and recreated each time picasa runs. So why
> bother having the .pal files at all? First they seem to serve as a
> human readable (XML) listing of albumns and their contents. Second and
> most interesting, they can be used to *import* albumns into picasa....
> sort of....
> When picasa starts it reads all of the .pal files located in the
> Picasa2Albums folder. Each pal file has a DBID. Picasa seems to do
> nothing with .pal files that are in its internal database (db2
> directory) with a DBID that it expects to see. However, if it detects
> a .pal file with an incorrect DBID, it will try to import that albumn
> into its internal database and then spit out a new refreshed .pal when
> it closes.
> Confusing? Here's the moral of the story, if you want to import
> albumns ie have the ability to move albumns between computers you need
> to change the filenames to point to the correct location *and* enter
> an invalid DBID. What I've done, and what has worked for me is using
> the word "null":
Thanks for the interesting info - always nice to learn more about the
inner workings!
Don makes a good point regarding "this should be easy". As a fan of
keywords (and author of a few posts regarding using keywords to
preserve albums), I must add "Picasa, keywords should be better".
They are flexible, and the fact that they are embedded in the pics is
invaluable. But some basic management tools are really in order:
multi word keywords, better tools for adding/removing/managing keyword
lists - there are lots of programs that do better in this area. Lets
hope its better in the mysterious V3!
> Others have suggested using keywords to tag albums as a way to bypass
> the portability and flexibility issues with albums that you point
> out. That method sounds atractive to me especially since I also use
> Adobe photoshop elements organizer to view the same photos and the
> tags are portable between the two applications.
> The search funtion in Picasa in my experience is extremely fast even
> with hundreds of thousands of photos (a second or two) so one can
> search for an album identified with tags quickly. The disadvantage
> is
> having to remember the keywords associated with albums or cut and
> paste them from somewhere as apposed to the single click access to
> albums in Picasa.
> On Nov 27, 5:43 pm, jrvirtue wrote:
> > While Picasa as a whole is an absolutely great piece of software, its
> > implementation of albumns is somewhat less than stellar. It's
> > particularily bad when you need to move picasa between computers or
> > change the directory your pictures are stored in. Having spent the
> > last 3 days trying to do just that, I thought I would pass on what I
> > learned.
> > First albumns are stored in what appears to be two locations. The
> > first location and obvious one is in the Albumns directory in the form
> > of XML .pal files:
> > C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Local Settings\Application Data
> > \Google\Picasa2Albums\[DBID]
> > The second place they appear to be stored is embedded in the binary
> > database files in the picasa database directory:
> > Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Picasa2\db2
> > From what I can tell, and what I think causes people a lot of trouble,
> > is that the .pal files aren't the primary way picasa keeps track of
> > albumns. Rather, albumns seem to be tracked in the database. In fact,
> > the .pal files are deleted and recreated each time picasa runs. So why
> > bother having the .pal files at all? First they seem to serve as a
> > human readable (XML) listing of albumns and their contents. Second and
> > most interesting, they can be used to *import* albumns into picasa....
> > sort of....
> > When picasa starts it reads all of the .pal files located in the
> > Picasa2Albums folder. Each pal file has a DBID. Picasa seems to do
> > nothing with .pal files that are in its internal database (db2
> > directory) with a DBID that it expects to see. However, if it detects
> > a .pal file with an incorrect DBID, it will try to import that albumn
> > into its internal database and then spit out a new refreshed .pal when
> > it closes.
> > Confusing? Here's the moral of the story, if you want to import
> > albumns ie have the ability to move albumns between computers you need
> > to change the filenames to point to the correct location *and* enter
> > an invalid DBID. What I've done, and what has worked for me is using
> > the word "null":
Hey, thanks Jason... this sounds like a great tip. Will have a chance
to test it out in the coming week as I transfer photos and albums
between disks. Very good to know the pal file isn't the primary source
of info.
I'm assuming from these posts that the .pal file is a simple text
file, ie, no special hex editor needed?
> While Picasa as a whole is an absolutely great piece of software, its
> implementation of albumns is somewhat less than stellar. It's
> particularily bad when you need to move picasa between computers or
> change the directory your pictures are stored in. Having spent the
> last 3 days trying to do just that, I thought I would pass on what I
> learned.
> First albumns are stored in what appears to be two locations. The
> first location and obvious one is in the Albumns directory in the form
> of XML .palfiles:
> C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Local Settings\Application Data
> \Google\Picasa2Albums\[DBID]
> The second place they appear to be stored is embedded in the binary
> database files in the picasa database directory:
> Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Picasa2\db2
> From what I can tell, and what I think causes people a lot of trouble,
> is that the .palfiles aren't the primary way picasa keeps track of
> albumns. Rather, albumns seem to be tracked in the database. In fact,
> the .palfiles are deleted and recreated each time picasa runs. So why
> bother having the .palfiles at all? First they seem to serve as a
> human readable (XML) listing of albumns and their contents. Second and
> most interesting, they can be used to *import* albumns into picasa....
> sort of....
> When picasa starts it reads all of the .palfiles located in the
> Picasa2Albums folder. Eachpalfile has a DBID. Picasa seems to do
> nothing with .palfiles that are in its internal database (db2
> directory) with a DBID that it expects to see. However, if it detects
> a .palfile with an incorrect DBID, it will try to import that albumn
> into its internal database and then spit out a new refreshed .palwhen
> it closes.
> Confusing? Here's the moral of the story, if you want to import
> albumns ie have the ability to move albumns between computers you need
> to change the filenames to point to the correct location *and* enter
> an invalid DBID. What I've done, and what has worked for me is using
> the word "null":
Easy but a little shortsighted: what if you have a collection of 40+
CDs' worth of photos, catalogued and albumed in Picasa? Re-burn all 40
CDs? Even on DVD, that's a bit byzantine.
Backups to CD or to DVD are indeed byzantine (great word! :-) Once
you do a backup to an USB/Firewire external disk, you'll never even
look at a CD or DVD for backup purposes again. Ever. I guarantee
it. :-)
But, using backup and restore to keep multiple computers "in sync" as
far as album definitions is sort of overkill... Although, last time I
looked, if you backup even a single folder with a single photo in it,
you get the whole Picasa database on the backup - and that includes
all the album definitions... So it *might* be that you could do the
backup and restore stuff to move album definitions around...
Yes, you can edit a .pal file with notepad... works fine.
And, yes... keywords *should* be relatively equivalent to album
definitions... But the main difference is that an album definition
lets you specify an *order* to the photos... A search result for a
keyword is unordered. Also, you can easily run a slideshow of an
album. And you can easily upload an album to the web albums site.
And you can easily burn an album to a Gift CD... lots of things an
album is needed for, currently...
> Easy but a little shortsighted: what if you have a collection of 40+
> CDs' worth of photos, catalogued and albumed in Picasa? Re-burn all 40
> CDs? Even on DVD, that's a bit byzantine.
> On Dec 8, 11:40 pm, AlexanderK wrote:
> > The easiest way to move albums (or entire Picasa installations)
> > between computers is the built-in backup. :-}
Don et al.: can you briefly advise on the overall procedure for
transferring a backup-up large collection of photos and their albums
to a new computer? I want to try to get the sequence right the first
time.
I'm transferring a large (10,000+) collection of photos along with
their Picasa albums from a drive on my old computer to a new computer.
The photo folders and the entire Picasa Local Settings folders are
backed up using Window's Backup & Restore program.
I'm thinking about doing the following:
1. Restore my photos to a location on the new computer.
2. Install and start up Picasa, abort its initial scan, and remove all
current files from the db2 folder.
3. Restore the contents of my backed-up versions of the db2 and Album
folders into those empty ones.
4. Modify the restored pal files to point to the photo's new paths (&
set their DBID field to null per Jason).
5. Start up Picasa again and see if the albums are there.
Potential pitfalls of procedure #3: won't the old db files be
cataloged to the photos' old paths, leading to a nervous breakdown for
Picasa?
Perhaps I should not restore the backed-up version of the db2 folder
contents, and instead have Picasa survey the photos in their new
location and create its own new db2 files. And restore only the Album
pal files, and modify them accordingly.
Restoring the photo backups to the exact path they resided on in the
old computer is possible but quite tedious (were on a separate drive,
etc.), and I'd prefer to avoid that if possible.
Advice, please; you sound like you've been through this before ; ).
> Backups to CD or to DVD are indeed byzantine (great word! :-) Once
> you do a backup to an USB/Firewire external disk, you'll never even
> look at a CD or DVD for backup purposes again. Ever. I guarantee
> it. :-)
> But, using backup and restore to keep multiple computers "in sync" as
> far as album definitions is sort of overkill... Although, last time I
> looked, if you backup even a single folder with a single photo in it,
> you get the whole Picasa database on the backup - and that includes
> all the album definitions... So it *might* be that you could do the
> backup and restore stuff to move album definitions around...
> Yes, you can edit a .palfile with notepad... works fine.
> And, yes... keywords *should* be relatively equivalent to album
> definitions... But the main difference is that an album definition
> lets you specify an *order* to the photos... A search result for a
> keyword is unordered. Also, you can easily run a slideshow of an
> album. And you can easily upload an album to the web albums site.
> And you can easily burn an album to a Gift CD... lots of things an
> album is needed for, currently...
> Don
> On Dec 9, 5:06 pm,zeke7wrote:
> > Easy but a little shortsighted: what if you have a collection of 40+
> > CDs' worth of photos, catalogued and albumed in Picasa? Re-burn all 40
> > CDs? Even on DVD, that's a bit byzantine.
> > On Dec 8, 11:40 pm, AlexanderK wrote:
> > > The easiest way to move albums (or entire Picasa installations)
> > > between computers is the built-in backup. :-}
1. create a full backup with Picasa's built-in backup utility. This
will backup all your edits and albums. Captions and keywords are
stored inside the photos anyway, so they will be backup up with the
images. Use an external harddisk for the backup as Don suggested. :-)
2. install Picasa on the new computer
3. run the "picasarestore.exe" from the external backup harddisk.
During the restore process, it will ask you where to restore your
photos, and restore your edits and albums.
Hello again--couldn't wait for replies, got too anxious after posting
the previous message and tried things out. Turns out you don't need to
(and probably shouldn't) import the old db folder & its files. Here's
what worked, quite successfully:
1. Restore your backed-up photos to a location on the new computer.
(Retain the Picasa.ini file in each folder if it's there in the
original.)
2. Install and start up Picasa, let it do its initial scan (from which
you can't seem to abort, see below); make sure it finds the restored
photos folder if it didn't from the initial scan (Tools\Folder
Manager).
3. With Picasa not running, restore the backed-up versions of the
Album pal files into the appropriate system path (in Windows 2K at
least, typically it's C:\Documents and Settings\[logged-on user]\Local
Settings\Application Data\Google\Picasa2Albums\[long nonsensical
alphanumeric-named folder]\).
4. Modify each restored pal file: set the DBID field to null
(<DBID>null</DBID>, per Jason above), and if necessary modify the path
to the photos' new location using search & replace. (Per a tip from
another poster on this forum, WordPad proves much easier than Notepad
for this task).
5. Start up Picasa again and voila! (or viola!, as some careless
spellcheckers prefer ; ( --your old Albums are restored.
One very nice facet I discovered is that your backed-up photos retain
their Picasa 'stars' thanks to the Picasa.ini file in each photo
folder, so you if you used those, your Starred Photos album is
automatically restored after Picasa imports the photos. (Thus if you
created your original custom albums via starred photos, you can
presumably recreate them without too much effort even if importing the
pal files doesn't work.)
Some quirks:
Make sure Picasa is not running when you paste your modified pal files
into the system folder. Otherwise they'll be wiped out when you shut
down that instance of Picasa.
That initial import [either Entire Computer or My Docs only] routine
when a new install of Picasa first fires up is brutally relentless! If
you have other photos in My Docs you don't want cataloged, you'll have
to wait until they are, then go into Folder Manager to remove them.
Picasa could sure seem to use an Album Manager along with its Folder
Manager. That and a suite of other improvements (beyond the scope of
this post). But like Jason notes at the top of this post, it's still a
great program, great enough to make the tedious transfer routine
described here worthwhile.
> Don et al.: can you briefly advise on the overall procedure for
> transferring a backup-up large collection of photos and their albums
> to a new computer? I want to try to get the sequence right the first
> time.
> I'm transferring a large (10,000+) collection of photos along with
> their Picasa albums from a drive on my old computer to a new computer.
> The photo folders and the entire Picasa Local Settings folders are
> backed up using Window's Backup & Restore program.
> I'm thinking about doing the following:
> 1. Restore my photos to a location on the new computer.
> 2. Install and start up Picasa, abort its initial scan, and remove all
> current files from the db2 folder.
> 3. Restore the contents of my backed-up versions of the db2 and Album
> folders into those empty ones.
> 4. Modify the restoredpalfiles to point to the photo's new paths (&
> set their DBID field to null per Jason).
> 5. Start up Picasa again and see if the albums are there.
> Potential pitfalls of procedure #3: won't the old db files be
> cataloged to the photos' old paths, leading to a nervous breakdown for
> Picasa?
> Perhaps I should not restore the backed-up version of the db2 folder
> contents, and instead have Picasa survey the photos in their new
> location and create its own new db2 files. And restore only the Albumpalfiles, and modify them accordingly.
> Restoring the photo backups to the exact path they resided on in the
> old computer is possible but quite tedious (were on a separate drive,
> etc.), and I'd prefer to avoid that if possible.
> Advice, please; you sound like you've been through this before ; ).
> On Dec 9, 7:01 pm, Don Lind wrote:
> > Backups to CD or to DVD are indeed byzantine (great word! :-) Once
> > you do a backup to an USB/Firewire external disk, you'll never even
> > look at a CD or DVD for backup purposes again. Ever. I guarantee
> > it. :-)
> > But, using backup and restore to keep multiple computers "in sync" as
> > far as album definitions is sort of overkill... Although, last time I
> > looked, if you backup even a single folder with a single photo in it,
> > you get the whole Picasa database on the backup - and that includes
> > all the album definitions... So it *might* be that you could do the
> > backup and restore stuff to move album definitions around...
> > Yes, you can edit a .palfile with notepad... works fine.
> > And, yes... keywords *should* be relatively equivalent to album
> > definitions... But the main difference is that an album definition
> > lets you specify an *order* to the photos... A search result for a
> > keyword is unordered. Also, you can easily run a slideshow of an
> > album. And you can easily upload an album to the web albums site.
> > And you can easily burn an album to a Gift CD... lots of things an
> > album is needed for, currently...
> > Don
> > On Dec 9, 5:06 pm,zeke7wrote:
> > > Easy but a little shortsighted: what if you have a collection of 40+
> > > CDs' worth of photos, catalogued and albumed in Picasa? Re-burn all 40
> > > CDs? Even on DVD, that's a bit byzantine.
> > > On Dec 8, 11:40 pm, AlexanderK wrote:
> > > > The easiest way to move albums (or entire Picasa installations)
> > > > between computers is the built-in backup. :-}
AlexanderK: sorry, there is no other Backup option than to BURN TO CD.
Check it out and you'll see.
Because you haven't, here's the Backup routine:
1.Create a Set or use existing one.
2. Choose what to Backup.
3. BURN. Insert a blank CD or DVD into your drive.
As already noted, for those with large quantities of photos, burning
the backup to a plethora of CDs or DVDs is byzantine.
Don suggests using an external harddisk, but still in the context of
having to restore and tweak the pal album files as excruciatingly
detailed here. Re-read and you'll see.
I *think* the Picasa guys actually say to do the restore *before* you
install Picasa.
Apparently, the newly-installed Picasa picks up the existing database
and completely avoids any scans.
If you're going to try to fake out Picasa and edit PAL files... good
luck... :-) WIth that extra "zap the DBID" field in the PAL file, it
sounds like you can *maybe* make it happen. I'd be *completely*
prepared for lost albums, though... But since you have backups, you're
ok. :-)
As an experiment, I'd restore all the photos to new locations.
I'd edit the PAL files.
I'd probably throw away the Picasa database files (except for the
folder of edited PAL files).
Then, install Picasa and let it scan the whole computer (so that it
will find all your photos?).
If you just have it do the minimal scan, it won't find all your
photos, so it'll probably lose the album definitions.
I don't know if it'd be better to leave more of the old database out
there... it'd probably just confuse things...
All speculation... Time for a big experiment. :-)
Post back and let us know how it goes.
And I hope the Picasa guys are reading this. :-)
It's a common thing these days that people get a new drive and move
photos to the new drive.
Preserving our albums shouldn't take this kind of total nonsense. :-)
Note - I'm smiling here... really... and I'm *not* mad. Picasa has
things that need improving.. We need a nice update to the program...
That's all. It's one heck of a neat piece of software. And I really
like it a lot. So please don't get the idea I'm grumpy at it or
anything... ya know? :-)
> 1. create a full backup with Picasa's built-in backup utility. This
> will backup all your edits and albums. Captions and keywords are
> stored inside the photos anyway, so they will be backup up with the
> images. Use an external harddisk for the backup as Don suggested. :-)
> 2. install Picasa on the new computer
> 3. run the "picasarestore.exe" from the external backup harddisk.
> During the restore process, it will ask you where to restore your
> photos, and restore your edits and albums.
Exactly. Although I don't view it a "fooling" the program, it's having
to do painstakingly manually what the program in its current version
fails to provide in a user-friendly interface. And having to discover
how to do that in user forums, rather than the Picasa help pages.
Simply put, providing a CD/DVD burn as the only interface backup
option is downright shortsighted, and thinking in a very small box.
Not a very eco-friendly or cheap solution for those with large photo
collections, either.
Clearly, we're salivating for a version 3.
BTW, if you didn't catch it, I did the restore pretty much as you
suggested here, with 100% success; posted the results before you got
your post up. Large learning curve, but now that I know the routine,
can perform it quickly next time... until v.3 comes out.
> I *think* the Picasa guys actually say to do the restore *before* you
> install Picasa.
> Apparently, the newly-installed Picasa picks up the existing database
> and completely avoids any scans.
> If you're going to try to fake out Picasa and edit PAL files... good
> luck... :-) WIth that extra "zap the DBID" field in the PAL file, it
> sounds like you can *maybe* make it happen. I'd be *completely*
> prepared for lost albums, though... But since you have backups, you're
> ok. :-)
> As an experiment, I'd restore all the photos to new locations.
> I'd edit the PAL files.
> I'd probably throw away the Picasa database files (except for the
> folder of edited PAL files).
> Then, install Picasa and let it scan the whole computer (so that it
> will find all your photos?).
> If you just have it do the minimal scan, it won't find all your
> photos, so it'll probably lose the album definitions.
> I don't know if it'd be better to leave more of the old database out
> there... it'd probably just confuse things...
> All speculation... Time for a big experiment. :-)
> Post back and let us know how it goes.
> And I hope the Picasa guys are reading this. :-)
> It's a common thing these days that people get a new drive and move
> photos to the new drive.
> Preserving our albums shouldn't take this kind of total nonsense. :-)
> Note - I'm smiling here... really... and I'm *not* mad. Picasa has
> things that need improving.. We need a nice update to the program...
> That's all. It's one heck of a neat piece of software. And I really
> like it a lot. So please don't get the idea I'm grumpy at it or
> anything... ya know? :-)
> Don
> On Dec 11, 1:56 pm, AlexanderK wrote:
> > That sounds mighty complicated, zeke7.
> > Here's how I would do it:
> > 1. create a full backup with Picasa's built-in backup utility. This
> > will backup all your edits and albums. Captions and keywords are
> > stored inside the photos anyway, so they will be backup up with the
> > images. Use an external harddisk for the backup as Don suggested. :-)
> > 2. install Picasa on the new computer
> > 3. run the "picasarestore.exe" from the external backup harddisk.
> > During the restore process, it will ask you where to restore your
> > photos, and restore your edits and albums.
The backup process includes the album files. The picasarestore.exe
files asks you if you want to restore to a different location and
fixes the albums on the go if you do that.
> Very very sorry folks--every time I refreshed this page to see if new
> replies came in, it reposted my earlier message. That's 5 times at
> last count? Another bit of a learning curve here on this forum...
Very nice. :-)
Not something I'd want to do regularly... but it's nice to know that
albums can still be be salvaged from the .PAL files and rebuilt again.
But really... this is *not* something I'd *ever* expect to appear in
the regular Picasa documentation.
You can believe what you want as far as whether this is "fooling"
Picasa or not. :-)
But what's going on here is definitely messing around in places they
did *not* intend normal users to be messing around in.
But, when they've taken too long to put the appropriate and required
functionality in the Picasa program, our "needs" cause us to
experiment and see what we can get away with. :-) 'Cause, as
Alexander implied, we're manly men, here. :-) I'm pretty sure I was
the first user to post stuff on moving (and/or recovering) an album
definition by messing with the .PAL files. And I remember hesitating
before I posted, wondering how "kosher" it was to post that kind of
thing... well, I'm past that now. :-) And then the Picasa guys did
some internal change that caused the PAL updates to no longer work (I
like to think it was because of my posting the .PAL stuff :-) But
then that other nice experimenter (who's name escapes me right now)
figured out that zapping the DBID part of the PAL file got things
going again...
Anyway... good job and nice post. There will be others who will want
to do this from time to time...
Here's to hoping that the Picasa3 update will include a major
reworking of albums so we don't have to do this stuff any more. :-)
> Hello again--couldn't wait for replies, got too anxious after posting
> the previous message and tried things out. Turns out you don't need to
> (and probably shouldn't) import the old db folder & its files. Here's
> what worked, quite successfully:
> 1. Restore your backed-up photos to a location on the new computer.
> (Retain the Picasa.ini file in each folder if it's there in the
> original.)
> 2. Install and start up Picasa, let it do its initial scan (from which
> you can't seem to abort, see below); make sure it finds the restored
> photos folder if it didn't from the initial scan (Tools\Folder
> Manager).
> 3. With Picasa not running, restore the backed-up versions of the
> Album pal files into the appropriate system path (in Windows 2K at
> least, typically it's C:\Documents and Settings\[logged-on user]\Local
> Settings\Application Data\Google\Picasa2Albums\[long nonsensical
> alphanumeric-named folder]\).
> 4. Modify each restored pal file: set the DBID field to null
> (<DBID>null</DBID>, per Jason above), and if necessary modify the path
> to the photos' new location using search & replace. (Per a tip from
> another poster on this forum, WordPad proves much easier than Notepad
> for this task).
> 5. Start up Picasa again and voila! (or viola!, as some careless
> spellcheckers prefer ; ( --your old Albums are restored.
> One very nice facet I discovered is that your backed-up photos retain
> their Picasa 'stars' thanks to the Picasa.ini file in each photo
> folder, so you if you used those, your Starred Photos album is
> automatically restored after Picasa imports the photos. (Thus if you
> created your original custom albums via starred photos, you can
> presumably recreate them without too much effort even if importing the
> pal files doesn't work.)
> Some quirks:
> Make sure Picasa is not running when you paste your modified pal files
> into the system folder. Otherwise they'll be wiped out when you shut
> down that instance of Picasa.
> That initial import [either Entire Computer or My Docs only] routine
> when a new install of Picasa first fires up is brutally relentless! If
> you have other photos in My Docs you don't want cataloged, you'll have
> to wait until they are, then go into Folder Manager to remove them.
> Picasa could sure seem to use an Album Manager along with its Folder
> Manager. That and a suite of other improvements (beyond the scope of
> this post). But like Jason notes at the top of this post, it's still a
> great program, great enough to make the tedious transfer routine
> described here worthwhile.
> On Dec 11, 9:56 am, zeke7 wrote:
> > Don et al.: can you briefly advise on the overall procedure for
> > transferring a backup-up large collection of photos and their albums
> > to a new computer? I want to try to get the sequence right the first
> > time.
> > I'm transferring a large (10,000+) collection of photos along with
> > their Picasa albums from a drive on my old computer to a new computer.
> > The photo folders and the entire Picasa Local Settings folders are
> > backed up using Window's Backup & Restore program.
> > I'm thinking about doing the following:
> > 1. Restore my photos to a location on the new computer.
> > 2. Install and start up Picasa, abort its initial scan, and remove all
> > current files from the db2 folder.
> > 3. Restore the contents of my backed-up versions of the db2 and Album
> > folders into those empty ones.
> > 4. Modify the restoredpalfiles to point to the photo's new paths (&
> > set their DBID field to null per Jason).
> > 5. Start up Picasa again and see if the albums are there.
> > Potential pitfalls of procedure #3: won't the old db files be
> > cataloged to the photos' old paths, leading to a nervous breakdown for
> > Picasa?
> > Perhaps I should not restore the backed-up version of the db2 folder
> > contents, and instead have Picasa survey the photos in their new
> > location and create its own new db2 files. And restore only the Albumpalfiles, and modify them accordingly.
> > Restoring the photo backups to the exact path they resided on in the
> > old computer is possible but quite tedious (were on a separate drive,
> > etc.), and I'd prefer to avoid that if possible.
> > Advice, please; you sound like you've been through this before ; ).
> > On Dec 9, 7:01 pm, Don Lind wrote:
> > > Backups to CD or to DVD are indeed byzantine (great word! :-) Once
> > > you do a backup to an USB/Firewire external disk, you'll never even
> > > look at a CD or DVD for backup purposes again. Ever. I guarantee
> > > it. :-)
> > > But, using backup and restore to keep multiple computers "in sync" as
> > > far as album definitions is sort of overkill... Although, last time I
> > > looked, if you backup even a single folder with a single photo in it,
> > > you get the whole Picasa database on the backup - and that includes
> > > all the album definitions... So it *might* be that you could do the
> > > backup and restore stuff to move album definitions around...
> > > Yes, you can edit a .palfile with notepad... works fine.
> > > And, yes... keywords *should* be relatively equivalent to album
> > > definitions... But the main difference is that an album definition
> > > lets you specify an *order* to the photos... A search result for a
> > > keyword is unordered. Also, you can easily run a slideshow of an
> > > album. And you can easily upload an album to the web albums site.
> > > And you can easily burn an album to a Gift CD... lots of things an
> > > album is needed for, currently...
> > > Don
> > > On Dec 9, 5:06 pm,zeke7wrote:
> > > > Easy but a little shortsighted: what if you have a collection of 40+
> > > > CDs' worth of photos, catalogued and albumed in Picasa? Re-burn all 40
> > > > CDs? Even on DVD, that's a bit byzantine.
> > > > On Dec 8, 11:40 pm, AlexanderK wrote:
> > > > > The easiest way to move albums (or entire Picasa installations)
> > > > > between computers is the built-in backup. :-}
AlexanderK: how very right you are... and how buried that "back up to
disk" option is!
Thanks much for pointing out that help file; would have saved me (and
presumably the other posters here) much work going the tedious route.
Don, did you see this?
The big catch is that you must choose to create a new backup set in
step 1, rather than using the default "My Backup Set" provided, in
order to access the disk-to-disk backup option.
It's way too easy for a user just to skip past that using the default
'my backup set' ('sounds good to me...') and proceed to step 2, by
which time they're locked into burn to CD only.
That's what us others in this post, along with who knows how many
others, have done. And that's what sent me to this forum, seeking out
how to save my albums without having to burn 50 CDs, where I
discovered Don's pal-edit technique.
I see it as a definite interface design flaw, why after step 2 they
provide a big Burn [=to CD only] button but no write to disk option
there. It's not exactly intuitive that you have to 'create a new set'
in order to access a hard drive to save your data. Why not a burn to
disc button right beside the 'burn' [to CD] one?
The mechanics of this program are wonderful; I see the interface as
definitely having room for improvement, however, this being one
example. Do you know of a web page for posting such suggestions
directly to Picasa?
And thanks also for the tip on removing duplicate posts.
BTW, for those still intent on editing the pal files, the BTID field
that Jason sets to null can be alternatively populated with the name
of the new subfolder under \Picasa2Albums into which you're pasting
your old pal files. That's what the field gets updated to after Picasa
logs your old albums. But that all seems moot now.
> The backup process includes the album files. The picasarestore.exe
> files asks you if you want to restore to a different location and
> fixes the albums on the go if you do that.
I agree that it may appear a bit "unnatural" how the target medium is
set. I'm coming from the IT route, and the definition of a backup set
including the target device is perfectly normal for me... :-)
And the nice thing about the way it works now is that you can have
different backup sets that go to different targets. I have one backup
sets that goes to my secondary internal harddisk, another backup set
that goes to my external harddisk that I store at work normally...
(that may sound paranoid, but the photos are really the ONE thing that
would be completely lost in a desaster scenary, so in case this house
burns down or something, I still have my photos on the external
harddisk in a drawer at work - I can buy a new computer, camera, and
whatnot, but no one can bring me back my photos, so two backups are
better than one, and a secondary backup stored somewhere else but in
my flat felt like a good idea)... and a third backup set that saves
the photos of my girlfriend to DVD. :-)
Fully concur on storing a backup remotely--stolen computer, crashed
disks, fire, flood, and it's all gone.
On the interface issue, Picasa further steers one away from finding
the back-up-to-disk setting by placing a big Help? button in the lower-
right corner of its 2-step Backup menu. Click on it and where does it
take you? To a "Burning a CD or DVD in Picasa" help page, further
implying that's the only target for your backup.
As noted, end-users are too used to accepting a program's provided
default ("it's safe....") like choosing step 1's My Backup Set to
explore creating a new one and discover that there and only there is
the option to backup to disk.
Most Windows programs have a high degree of redundancy built so one
can access a given command or setting from various routes (eg, drop-
down menu, toolbar button, keyboard shortcut). Picasa's philosophy
seems to be to eliminate this redundancy: some functions are in the
menu, others in buttons, others accessed by right-clicking a feature,
but quite often they're in only one of these 3 places.
That streamlined approach has definite advantages, but can lead to a
user easily missing something, as we 'pal-editing' posters have
clearly evidenced.
> I agree that it may appear a bit "unnatural" how the target medium is
> set. I'm coming from the IT route, and the definition of a backup set
> including the target device is perfectly normal for me... :-)
> And the nice thing about the way it works now is that you can have
> different backup sets that go to different targets. I have one backup
> sets that goes to my secondary internal harddisk, another backup set
> that goes to my external harddisk that I store at work normally...
> (that may sound paranoid, but the photos are really the ONE thing that
> would be completely lost in a desaster scenary, so in case this house
> burns down or something, I still have my photos on the external
> harddisk in a drawer at work - I can buy a new computer, camera, and
> whatnot, but no one can bring me back my photos, so two backups are
> better than one, and a secondary backup stored somewhere else but in
> my flat felt like a good idea)... and a third backup set that saves
> the photos of my girlfriend to DVD. :-)
