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After upgrading to Picasa 3, my albums are gone. How do I recover them?
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Magnum
Google Employee
12/2/08
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Magnum
Google Employee
12/2/08
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Follow the advice of top contributor AnthonyP: This isn't going to be pretty but it should work.
Picasa 3 makes backups of your PAL files but there is no UI to restore
them.
Set Windows to display Hidden Files and Folders:
1. Open Windows Explorer ("My Computer" on XP, "Computer" on
Vista).
2. Go to Tools > Folder Options > View (Vista: go to Organize >
Folder and Search Options > View).
3. Select "Show Hidden files and folders", click OK.
Open up the Picasa Albums database folder:
On XP it's located in:
C:\Documents and Settings\*YourName*\Local Settings\Application
Data\Google\Picasa2Albums
On Vista:
C:\Users\*YourName*\AppData\Local\Google\Picasa2Albums
Copy your PAL files from the backup folder:
1. Open up the "backup" folder.
2. Find a backup date folder that contains all of your PAL files.
3. Select them all and press CTRL+C to copy them into the
clipboard.
4. Leave this Window open.
Start a database rebuild
1. Put your fingers over SHIFT+CTRL+ALT
2. Launch Picasa
3. *Immediately* press SHIFT+CTRL+ALT (you get about 1/2 a second
between clicking and pressing).
4. If you've done it fast enough you will be prompted to rebuild the
database: *don't do it yet*.
Paste your PAL files into the database location.
1. Go back to the backup window and go back until you see the
"backup" folder along with "watchedfolders.txt".
2. Open the folder with the weird name (Something like
"d607f60abef04e5968b11cb8c1aa6f42").
3. CTRL+V to paste the copied PAL folders into this directory.
Rebuild the database
1. Go back to Picasa and the prompt to rebuild your database.
2. Click Yes.
Personally, I would leave my computer alone and just let it rebuild
the database at this point.
Should Picasa close down "unexpectedly" during the rebuild (which is a
nice way to say "crash"), you will be back to square one.
When the rebuild is done restart Picasa. You should have all your
albums back.
I did exactly as you described - my albums were not restored. Picasa3 just deletes the copied .pal files. I quit picasa, copied the files again, and got two albums back Both had <DBID>6c385d50eec7259357e9c30a22e3a505</DBID> So I tried putting that value in one of the missing albums pal files, but the album did not show, and when picasa3 quits, that pal file was deleted.
Ditto. I'm having the same issue as well. I see the .pal files, i've copied them, rebuilt the dbase, checked/ edited the paths in the watched folders file, uninstalled and reinstalled picasa several times... still the albums are missing :(
Anthony's procedure can be simplified. Try this:
Locate a folder it the backup folder that contains your pals. Copy that folder up one level to the Picasa2Albums folder. Rename the Picasa2 folder to OLD picasa and restart Picasa.
Before launching Picasa you should have this folder structure.
google
Picasa2Albums
6c385d50eec7259357e9c30a22e3a505
Sunday, 21 December 2008 (your pals are in this folder)
backup
Um...it should look like this. google OLD Picasa2 Picasa2Albums 6c385d50eec7259357e9c30a22e3a5 05
Sunday, 21 December 2008 (your pals are in this folder)
backup
I have followed all of these instructions, and yet no matter what I do Picasa deletes my pal files. I have 49 albums. I lets me keep 3 for some reason. Thousands of pictures, dozens of folders, and dozens of hours my wife has spent organizing the albums in Picasa, all shot! This is maddening. What moron programmer overlooked the necessity to have existing albums automatically import into Picasa 3 when upgrading?
Settle down there JF :-). This procedure is overly complicated, although it should work. Try the procedure in this link instead: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Picasa/thread?tid=7250eb144d049f84&hl=en . See if the pal files in the dated backup folder have been removed after rebuilding your data base. If so, that means Picasa found them and incorporated them into the new data base. If you don't see the corresponding albums in Picasa, that means that Picasa threw them out again for some reason. Verify that you have a photo where your pal file indicates there should be one. Open the pal corresponding to a missing album with Notepad. You should be able to recognize a list of path names. Carefully inspect those names and make sure they lead to a photo. Check back with your findings and we will see where to go from there.
I followed Alexander's instructions, and they worked perfectly! Many thanks.
Alexander's tips worked for me too. Thanks a lot! Just one tip for mac users: During database rebuild, you'll be asked to delete the data not rebuild it. Go ahead and do it, worked for me.
Thanks.. it worked for me, and got some albums back (which I've now promptly exported to html, and backed up!). Cheers!
Oh boy, I am a woman, over sixty and I have a similar problem but I don't get your complicated instructions. I have been uploading my photos on my PC and when I clicked on Picasa to view my photos it automatically copied my photos from my PC to Picasa. My PC crashed so I signed into Picasa Web Albums on my laptop and now I see about 10 out of 30 + albums, maybe more, I can't figure out home come I have these but not the rest? Can someone explain to me what to do in "plain language" Thanks so much!
Wow, what a mess! I have now finally got my albums back after following the above steps many times, but seriously, there has *got* to be a UI for restoring Picasa's backups! For me, it wasn't working even after following all the steps above. To make it work, I had to copy the backup files to the clipboard, renaming the Picasa2 folder, launch Picasa, paste the backup files into the 0f54689c34261916c6a2368dbc4c2128 (gibberish) folder, and then start the scan. BUT, to actually make the albums appear, I then had to click File, Add Folder to Picasa, and tick all the folders where my pictures were located - even the ones that had already been found. Only then did my albums reappear. I now have a 318d878aa30a1b4e6f91260e4a34c76f in my Picasa2Albums folder as well... please Google, this has to be made simpler! Picasa is otherwise a flawless, wonderful piece of software, but losing years of work is crushing!
Ok...I am about to pull my hair out here...I have tried all of the tips, and the hacking, and the PAL folder copying and all that stuff to attemp to restore all my older Picasa albums after the update got rid of them. I even uninstalled and reinstalled the whole program. Today the rebuild seemed to work, all of my albums were back where they were supposed to be, Picasa was merrily scanning my computer, but when it finished scanning and reimporting all of my pictures, what happens but the photo count in ALL of my albums drops to 0. The comments/captions and dates are still present, but after importing all of my pictures, Picasa just got rid of them all again. Then, when I shut down Picasa and reopen it again, none of my pictures are there and it begins to scan my whole computer again. I am begging you, please help me! I have so many pictures, and was (stupidly) depending on my Picasa albums to help me keep everything organized. Now, with everything gone, I can hardly make heads or tails of all my pictures.
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