Download Original PicasaWeb Photos & Albums Without Installing Picasa

With this hack you can learn how to download original full size photos and whole original full size albums from PicasaWeb without installing Picasa even if the download permission is disabled.
There are plenty of solutions for downloading full size Picasa Web Albums without installing the Picasa software. Most include installing other software instead or running scripts, batch files and what not. On top of all that most solutions do not download photos with a resolution higher than 1200x1600 pixels or if the download permission is disabled. Here is a fix to all this!

My Method

• is very easy
• does not include installing other software, or running obscure scripts
• lets you download the true full size photos of any resolution
• removes all download permissions a Picasaweb user might have set for their albums and photos

Download Full Size Picasa Web Albums
Get DownThemAll!, a very powerful and easy-to-use Firefox extension that adds advanced download capabilities to your browser. Don't forget to donate to this excellent project please. On the Picasa Web album that you like to download hit the blue RSS link on the right hand side of the album page.

In my example I am going to use my Picasa Web album containing a high resolution image of 3000 x 2400 pixels.

https://picasaweb.google.com/100092617169767389761/DownloadFullSizePicasaWebAlbumsWithoutInstallingPicasa#

You can see that on purpose I have disabled the download permission for the album as well as for individual photos. Both options are greyed out when you click on them.

With this method you will be able to bypass the disabled grey download permission on all Picasa Web albums! Please use it sensibly.

Once you hit the blue RSS link on the album page a new page with all the photos and videos of that album will open. There all photos and videos are listed in vertical order including their download links. Look at your browser's address bar and you will find the URL of that page.

In my example this is:

https://picasaweb.google.com/data/feed/base/user/100092617169767389761/albumid/5575524165425838241?alt=rss&kind=photo&hl=en_US

Now enter the following code right at the very end of the URL in your browser's address bar.

&imgdl=1

The new URL should look like this if you have done it right:

https://picasaweb.google.com/data/feed/base/user/100092617169767389761/albumid/5575524165425838241?alt=rss&kind=photo&hl=en_US&imgdl=1

Once you hit enter the page will reload. Wait for the page to reload completely!

Now

• you can download the true full size photos from the album
• you can download the videos from the album
• you have removed and bypassed all the disabled grey download permissions from the album

To finish right-click anywhere on the reloaded RSS page and simply select the DownThemAll! button in the menu that pops up.

You can now download the full size photos and videos to a directory of your choice with DownThemAll!. The limit of a maximum of 1200 x 1600 pixels resolution per downloaded photo is removed and you can fully download the photos with their original highest resolution. The disabled download permission is also removed from all the photos and videos in the album.

Of course this method also works for private albums as long as you have the private album's link or are being invited by email to view the photos and videos in a private album.

Include Videos In Your Download
If you select to download "All Files" inside the Filter options for DownThemall! and there are videos in the album, the videos will also be downloaded. You can watch those videos directly in your media player after they have been downloaded. My personal favorite is Media Player Classic Build 1.5.2.3236 that comes with the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack. Be careful though when installing any codec pack as this might interfere with already installed codecs that come with the operating system. Media Player Classic is a pretty safe bet though, rest assured. VLC is also a great media player that works without installing codecs onto your machine. There is also a portable version of VLC here if you like to be extra careful. I prefer Media Player Classic.

Download Full Size Photos From Picasa Web Albums
If you don't like to download the whole album but only a few full size photos do the following.

Right-click on the photo that you like to download and select "View Image".

Again there is a little change that has to be made to the URL to download the full size photo from this album. In this case the additional code will remove the disabled grey download permission settings as well.

I am going to take this image from my example album:

https://picasaweb.google.com/100092617169767389761/DownloadFullSizePicasaWebAlbumsWithoutInstallingPicasa#5679978347304131442

Once I right-click on the photo and hit "View Image" I get this URL:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJx2J-Sxz4-r4RkjSslrNcED1Obs48aeygZOVZIGp5cCwPH2pab96OWd-NwfUrZKEH9jb6jA1k8ocKyCs4JqEIoyS0xqPDd50VSW_XiQ9uXD6ySrVvfEZD9Fd3xzOvnoTPycQmyeqmsZ5e/s640/3000x2400.png

If you look right before the filename "3000x2400.png" the code in bold font between the forward slashes gives the photo the resolution that it is being displayed at.

If you set that to /h1600/ instead of /s640/ the photo will appear with a resolution of 1600 x 1200 pixels but no more than that.

But from the photo information we know that the photo in fact has a resolution of 3000 × 2400 pixels. So to be able to download the original full size photo from the album you have to replace the code in bold font with this code.

/d/

You can remember this easily if you think of /d/ as download.

So for this example the URL of the true full size photo with the highest resolution should look like this if you have done it right:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJx2J-Sxz4-r4RkjSslrNcED1Obs48aeygZOVZIGp5cCwPH2pab96OWd-NwfUrZKEH9jb6jA1k8ocKyCs4JqEIoyS0xqPDd50VSW_XiQ9uXD6ySrVvfEZD9Fd3xzOvnoTPycQmyeqmsZ5e/d/3000x2400.png

If you load that URL in your browser a menu will pop up in Firefox (or any other browser you might be using) asking what you would like to do with the file. You can now save the full size photo.

Again the disabled grey download permission is removed with this method!

Display Full Size Photos On Your Website
If you are heavily into photography or design and have a photography blog or your own photography or design website and you want to show huge photos, images or illustrations to your visitors you can also show and embed the actual full size photos on your website or blog.

Again when I right-click on this image from my album and select "View Image" I get this URL:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJx2J-Sxz4-r4RkjSslrNcED1Obs48aeygZOVZIGp5cCwPH2pab96OWd-NwfUrZKEH9jb6jA1k8ocKyCs4JqEIoyS0xqPDd50VSW_XiQ9uXD6ySrVvfEZD9Fd3xzOvnoTPycQmyeqmsZ5e/s640/3000x2400.png

To show the full size image on a website instead of downloading it you now simply replace the code in bold font with this code.

/s0/

So for this example the URL of the true full size photo with the highest resolution should look like this if you have done it right:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJx2J-Sxz4-r4RkjSslrNcED1Obs48aeygZOVZIGp5cCwPH2pab96OWd-NwfUrZKEH9jb6jA1k8ocKyCs4JqEIoyS0xqPDd50VSW_XiQ9uXD6ySrVvfEZD9Fd3xzOvnoTPycQmyeqmsZ5e/s0/3000x2400.png

Go ahead and click on it. You will see the true full size image being displayed in your browser as 3000 x 2400 pixels. Nice huh?

But be careful, not everyone does have such a huge screen. If you use this method is it a wise move to have a good look at your website statistics checking your audience's screen resolutions.

This can be useful though if you work in the design field and know that most of your website's visitors have a 27" or 30" inch screen. WQHD (2560 x 1440 pixels) is generally used by 27" monitors and WQXGA (2560 x 1600 pixels) is generally used by 30" monitors. Here you can find a list of common resolutions.

Picasaweb Changes RSS Full Size Download URLs
All developers that have been coding apps or making scripts to download full resolution Picasaweb albums might want to take a look at this. There has been an interesting change in the URLs for the normal and the full resolution links.

If you check the URL for the normal RSS feed of the first image in my album it will be this:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJx2J-Sxz4-r4RkjSslrNcED1Obs48aeygZOVZIGp5cCwPH2pab96OWd-NwfUrZKEH9jb6jA1k8ocKyCs4JqEIoyS0xqPDd50VSW_XiQ9uXD6ySrVvfEZD9Fd3xzOvnoTPycQmyeqmsZ5e/

Now if you check it again with the modified RSS feed including the &imgdl=1 code in the RSS feed's URL you will get this URL for this first image:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-wvNgQDERQr4/TtNWNor5G3I/AAAAAAAABGk/WMbRwvxR0IE/I/3000x2400.png

You can see that instead of simply adding a /d/ before the filename Picasaweb now adds an /I/ and also does replace the entire previous string before the forward slash.

Other Methods
I have read the many posts on downloading full size Picasaweb albums without installing Picasa, additional software, scripts, batch files, Greasemonkey and so on. I have also read Fredericiana's method about it. He seems to have corrected the outdated Greasemonkey script but did not publish that information.

So to a certain extent all those solutions work as well but if you really like to be able to download all photos and videos from any given album regardless of their resolution and download permission you can use this method and it will always work 100% unless Google changes something on Picasaweb.

URL Snooper 2
I have come across this method running URL Snooper 2 while Picasa was downloading a full size album with photos over 1200x1600 pixels resolution. The additions to the URLs were all coming up in URL Snooper 2. It was only a matter of understanding those changes. As Picasa relies on this specific short information in the photo and album URL I highly doubt that Google will change this method. If it does happen one day to increase the users privacy settings for individual photos as well as entire albums I will update this post.

Copyright
If you download photos despite the user not having given the download permission please be mature and do not use, spread or copy that file respecting the user's copyright on their photos and videos.

However on the other side if you really do not want your photos or videos copied do not upload them because sooner or later there will always be someone that will look for and discover a method to download your copyrighted work.

Another way to protect your copyrighted work is to put a watermark on it and only upload a small version of the work. This often discourages downloaders from going through the hassle of trying to find a method to save your work to their disk.

If you have trouble with my method feel free to let me know. Hopefully you have enjoyed this little insight to Picasaweb and can now download all the photos and albums you like without any restrictions.