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DESCRIPTION
Picasa and Picasa Web Albums allows you to organize, edit, and upload your photos to the web from your computer in quick, simple steps. Arrange your photos into folders and albums and erase their blemishes using powerful editing tools in Picasa. Then use Picasa Web Albums to share those perfected photos online with family, friends, and the world.
WHAT'S NEW
Version 3.6.1:
- Made a stability fix to Timeline.
- Fixed an issue where Picasa would only show the face thumbnail when a new album is created from a 'People' album.
- Fixed several issues in the import process.
- Fixed an issue where dragging and dropping into another folder didn't actually move the photo.
REQUIREMENTS
Mac OS X 10.4 or later.
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| Picasa User Reviews (47 posts) | Write A Review |
 | Feb 2 2009 |
GORDON142 The auto-update feature absolutely kills this application. Unlike every other application which checks for updates only when launched, Picasa requires you to install an auto-updater that launches at starting and runs in the background, downloading and installing updates to google software whether or not you are using it. Basically, the application installs a background process that will be running at all times, and is in no way essential to the functioning of the application. The only way to uninstall it is to remove ALL google software and simply wait. Google claims the updater will remove itself after 24 hours if no google software is found. This is both obnoxious and unethical. Again, there is no way to refuse to install the software update. Even if you remove it, the next time you launch Picasa it will be installed again.
(Version 3.0.3.363) | |
| [ Reply ] | |
| Mar 3 2009 |
JAMUS Agreed, the forced updater is completely wrong. Get rid of it and the software will be much better for people. Have it set as default fine, but give us the option to turn it off.
(Version 3.0.4) | |
| [ Reply ] | |
| Feb 3 2009 |
LEOOFBORG The new version of Picasa 3.x suffers from the same obnoxious 're-install Google Updater, which runs in the background, and if you throw away the pieces it re-installs again' nonsense that now afflicts Google Earth 5. Please see the MacUpdate review for GEarth 5 for more details. -2 stars for being evil. Please stop the madness, Google...
(Version 3.0.3.363) | |
| [ 4 Replies - Reply ] | |
Replies:
 | Feb 3 2009 |
LEOOFBORG X-post for those interested: The Google Update shenanigans thread [I think] is: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Picasa/thread?tid=68498bc22c8c3fad&hl=en&fid=68498bc22c8c3fad00046206be03ed97
(Version 3.0.3.363) | |
| Feb 3 2009 |
SJHA But if you follow the procedure described by Norbert Doerner in the Google Earth MacUpdate comments you can run Picasa without the evil GoogleSoftwareUpdater being re-installed.
(Version 3.0.3.363) | |
| Mar 3 2009 |
SLOB Yes, you can follow that procedure - if you know about it which most users won't - but why should anyone have to do that? The point is Google's become a big corporation with an increasing reach into areas of computer use, and this update mechanism is a demonstration of arrogance. It's like a rat sneaking into users houses & making nests. If that's tolerated what's next? 'Free' adverts on relaunch? Fk em. Where's my pussycat..?
(Version 3.0.4) | |
| Mar 3 2009 |
MARK EVERITT Install Lingon (find it free on macupdate) and run it. One of the things on the left will be com.google.keystone.agent. Click on this and then disable it. That should stop it the annoying updater running!
(Version 3.0.4) | |
| Jan 8 2009 |
FOOFOORABBIT There seems to be a crowd of people that resign themselves to the idea that free software should get a different treatment than commercial software. It seems like "free" automatically means that people are disallowed to post an opinion about the free software because "hey, it's free." Should everyone be giving Picasa 5 stars because it's free? Are people not allowed to complain about it because it's free? Just because something is free doesn't mean some people should crap on other people's opinions about background software update daemons, unconventional UIs, lack of color management, non-existent integration to other apps, etc. If we're going to get into technicalities here, Picasa is *not* free. It's paid by the various ads when using Google's search engine. Sure, you never have to pay actual money to Google, but you're paying them by accepting ads on your search results page. If we don't want to get into technicalities, then we can continue to say Picasa is free...and so is iPhoto if you buy the Mac Box Set from Apple: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB997?mco=MzA3MDgxNQ ... just pretend like you're paying for Leopard and getting iWork at 1/3 of its normal price and iLife for free. *BOOM* free iPhoto. It's easy to bend the truth about what is otherwise not free into something that could be considered free.
(Version 3.0.1.321) | |
| [ 1 Reply - Reply ] | |
Replies:
| Jan 27 2009 |
CORPSECORPS Had me at the beginning, because i think it's ridiculous that you aren't supposed to expect quality and functionality at the same level if something is free. It does what it's supposed to and is usefull, or it doesn't and isn't. On the other hand, i haven't a clue what the rest of that ramble was about.
(Version 3.0.2.348) | |
 | Sep 24 2009 |
HARRY HIRSCH Attention: If you use Snow Leopard Google Adressbook sync this Picasa version will corrupt your adress data in the Adressbook App.
(Version 3.5) | |
| [ Reply ] | |
| Sep 23 2009 |
LEMERLOT Having not been able to use Picasa for Mac due to its incredible high amount of CPU usage in earlier versions seems that with version 3.5.x the Picasa team finally did their home work pretty well: Now Picasa for Mac is great app to find and manage images on your hard drive without the need of organizing them in specific folders before or link them to iPhoto. While the new face recognition feature needs some time to find and index faces in thousands of images the results really impressed me. Finally well done, Picasa team! One important hint regarding your data protection: Think twice if you want to use Picasa with an online connection - especially if you try to import the name tags of your existing Picasa online account ! If you do it, Picasa imports ALL addresses from your Google online address book too without asking - and if you want to tag your images in your local Picasa for Mac app later, it always tries to connect the pictures with the real name, email address, phone number etc. of your Google address book entries. That's definitely not what I like - especially since Picasa for Mac doesn't allow you to delete those imported addresses from your Google online address book later in a batch mode, so you would have to work on every single one - for me nearly 2.000 entries. Be prepared !
(Version 3.5) | |
| [ 2 Replies - Reply ] | |
Replies:
| Sep 25 2009 |
DR. GIRLFRIEND Great review, LeMerlot! Thanks for the helpful info, but I do think you were much too generous giving Picasa 5 stars considering the huge Privacy Fail of the address book and contacts syncing. ~Take care. Dr. G
(Version 3.5) | |
| Sep 25 2009 |
DR. GIRLFRIEND Sorry, that post above was not supposed to be appear as a "review", but a comment.
(Version 3.5) | |
| Jul 31 2009 |
LEMERLOT Picasa for Mac's newest version 3.0.6 still uses 90% of my CPU with a test set of only 100 (!) JPG images when Picasa has focus - even after hours... I really would like to know what Picasa does here in the background with your data - especially since it's offered by Google. It's a pity... - I would really like to use Picasa if its developers finally would offer a version of Picasa like in earlier Windows days when version 2 didn't eat up all your CPU and offered the same core functionality: just an overview of all pictures stored on your hard disk. But with this new version it's still a CPU nightmare. (Core2Duo - and a very well fostered system - Mac OS X 10.5.7)
(Version 3.0.6) | |
| [ Reply ] | |
| Feb 3 2009 |
MARUKO DRINKING TEAM Oh, I forgot: also incredibly lame is the choice it presents upon startup: a.) Search Documents, Pictures, Desktop, and iPhoto Library, or b.) Search my whole computer for pictures. How about you *don't* search through my many gigabytes of files? How about at least the *option* of having some control (force-quit is your only way out of this on first launch). I personally have many many many .jpg and .png files, but most of those are just work junk, schematics, screenshots and whatnot, and certainly not something I want auto-imported into my photo-management software.
(Version 3.0.3.363) | |
| [ Reply ] | |
| Jan 5 2009 |
KEDOS This has some cool features the iPhoto is missing. It also loads much faster and is a lot snappier than iPhoto. That said, iPhoto still wins. I'm looking forward to updates in picasa, and for now I see this as something to further motivate Apple.
(Version 3.0.0.310) | |
| [ Reply ] | |
| May 5 2009 |
LEMERLOT While I really like the "Picasa for Mac" concept also this version 3.0.5 takes up to 90 percent of my CPU (MacBookPro Core2Duo)without letting me know why. That makes Picasa useless for me. Even researching on that issue on the web and rebuilding Picasa's database didn't help. Also Google didn't clear what's going on in the background and why Picasa takes such a huge amount of CPU (which it didn't in earlier pre 3.x versions). What a pity :-( That's why I had to rate it negative.
(Version 3.0.5) | |
| [ 4 Replies - Reply ] | |
Replies:
| May 5 2009 |
JONSI 1.5 % on my MBP 2.33 MHz C2D. Check your system.
(Version 3.0.5) | |
| May 5 2009 |
LEMERLOT Thanks for your feedback Jonsi, seems you're a lucky. Here's some other feedback from users affected by the same issue: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Picasa/thread?fid=750197dedb74cf58000466e120717bcb&hl=en I checked really everything - maybe it's because I'm having thousands of images... - but as said: 90% CPU isn't acceptable.
(Version 3.0.5) | |
 | May 5 2009 |
LEMERLOT UPDATE: Since even today's update to Picasa 3.0.5 still didn't fix the unacceptable CPU problem I downgraded to Picasa for Mac version 3.0.0.310 and now everything is fine. No more CPU hogs, a highly recommendable approach for all affected users :-)
(Version 3.0.5) | |
| Jul 1 2009 |
JOENSSON Picasa 3.0.5 also used 90% or so on my system (I have about 20GB of pictures and some videos too). However it only hogs resources when the picasa window has focus. As soon as i background the Picasa window or minimize it, it does not take any resources of significance. So I keep using 3.0.5 :-)
(Version 3.0.5) | |
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