Picasa needs glasses

November 9, 2009 7:12 AM

is there a way to make picasa web albums private so that people can see the picture you link for them but can't go and see the full album? right now, the options are "unlisted" which means people can see the picture you send them the link for but they can still hit "view all" and see the whole album or "sign in to view" which means they can't see anything at all is there an in-between?
posted by photodegas to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

Interesting question but I think the answer is, technically speaking, no. (here, here)

I have a totally private picasa a/c but the images are viewable on my blog. The picasa albums were populated by uploading through the blog interface however. So I guess one workaround would be to start a blogspot blog (you could definitely display previously uploaded items, but you'd need to remove the code that allows click through to the images in the album). Not the best choice I know and I'd be interested to hear if anyone has an alternative solution (or to find out I'm wrong).
posted by peacay at 7:30 AM on November 9, 2009

I was just fiddling with my Picasa albums, and I was able to select two options when clicking on the "link to this photo" option; "Hide Album Link," or "Image only (No Link)." Apparently both will still keep the "from "X" photo album" link, which will let you click through to the album. That stinks, and I honestly don't know what you could do to get picasa to do what you require. I want the people whom I invite to my private albums to look at everything in those albums so I've never needed more than the "pass/no pass" level of admission. I think you'll have to look for an app or service that will let you have multiple levels of security, like you could enable with FTP. (File Transfer Protocol, explained here) Perhaps Live Journal allows you more options. I'll ask Mrs Chosemerveilleux what she thinks, as she uses quite a few more services than I.
posted by chosemerveilleux at 8:27 AM on November 9, 2009

If you're just trying to share a single photo, I think you can do it by going to that photo in picasaweb, right clicking and selecting (in Firefox, anyway) "Copy Image Location". That URL, at least from what I can see, cannot be followed back to the album itself.

The one caveat, though, is that the picture at that URL is visible by ANYONE; it's not limited by picasa's user management.

(This info is based on some quick testing I did; I think it's right, but I can't guarantee it.)
posted by inigo2 at 8:42 AM on November 9, 2009

Update: Yeah, Live Journal will probably have more options than Pass/No Pass security with potential for individual access to pics, but whomever you invite to view it would have to have a live Journal account. You could create multiple albums and label each either private or public, but that amounts to cutting paper with a chainsaw. Please let us know if you work something out.
posted by chosemerveilleux at 8:46 AM on November 9, 2009

This is probably not what you want, but I created a seperate public album where I put pictures I want to link outside folks to - where the rest of the album that those pictures came from, I don't want to share. That way, if people click through, all they get is unrelated images that I don't mind that the world sees. It's easy enough to do that, to copy the photo into a new album, and keeps the worry at bay - but it's not super elegant.
posted by mccn at 10:20 AM on November 9, 2009