Sunday 2 September 2012

Oh dear. 90% of my blog photos are gone - why you should be careful deleting images on your Android phone if you use Blogger.

Me and technology aren't doing very well lately.  About 6 weeks after my 3 month old Samsung Galaxy Note met the Mexican sea, I finally got a replacement phone back on my insurance (hurrah!) and set about adding my contacts, apps etc. and generally making it my phone again.  I downloaded the Blogger app as I find it easier to put together a skeleton of a post if I'm out and about.  I also logged into my Google account to keep everything updated.  While I was checking some photos I noticed that there were a number of folders in there already that contained some (not all) of my blog owners).  I assumed that these were just copies over when I downloaded the Blogger app and deleted them.  Um, I was wrong. 

Did you know that when you upload photos to Blogger, it doesn't save them into Blogger, it saves them into Picasa web albums?  I sort of did but didn't think anything of it.  Picasa web albums also automatically synchronises with your Android phone.  Note I said synchronise...not copy, so anything you do to these images on your Android copies over to your Picasa web album.  I didn't see a warning or a notification about this anywhere, and never for one minute did I think they would be interconnected so much.  Until I checked my blog the day after and noticed that I had a lot of black exclamation marks where most of my images should be.

Googling around finally informed me that this was the case and that it's  not reversible, as in these images (3 years worth) are gone forever from my blog.  I spent Sunday morning trying to recover lost photos from my Android, looking for cached pages to re-image from and generally just stabbing in the dark trying to sort it.  None of this worked so the way I see it I have a few options:
  1. Delete the blog and either start again from scratch or stop blogging
  2. Leave it as it is and update the images from this point forward
  3. Go back and replace every photo that I have a copy of - my laptop died last year taking a few of them with it - and hope Google Images can sort the ones I haven't got.  Bear in mind my blog has been going for about 3 years and it's most of the images that have gone
  4. Give up on this technology lark and start keeping a paper diary that I leave hanging around at bus stops and the like in the hope that someone might pick it up and have a read 
None of these options are ideal and I haven't decided what to do just yet - probably not number 4 though.  To say I'm annoyed would be a massive understatement.  But it's been my mistake and as much as I think it's rubbish that there was no warning that images were synched, that there's no way to get anything back and that this isn't something that people seem to know anything about until it's too late, it was my mistake.  But I'm absolutely not the only person that this has happened to.  I think in future I'll be a lot more careful about my images and not just assume someone else is looking after them too.

If anyone has any tips, ideas, experience or just general sympathy on this issue I'd really really appreciate it!

13 comments:

  1. :( Sad to hear this. Your LinkWithin widget still seems to have the photos, don't know if that helps at all? xxx

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    1. Yeah I noticed this but not sure how to use it to my advantage, it's probably just taken a snapshot of the blog to use. I'll look into that though, thanks x

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  2. Ah that's annoying. That's why I always upload my photographs to facebook or flikr and then copy the url into blogger. Mainly too because there's a limit to how many pictures you can upload direct to picasa/blogger too.

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    1. Oh my god I didn't know that!

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  3. Oh dear. I'm going to have to check my blog now... x

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  4. Oh god now it looks like every single image has gone. Waaaaah!

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  5. Luckily I don't have an Android! Hope you are able to fix the problem soon!

    Lauren,
    Laurensbeautydepartment.blogspot.com

    xx

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  6. Aw no poor you, you must be devastated! So glad I have Apple now as this would have happened to me, I always delete my photos once I post them x

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  7. Hi I just wanted to say I'm so sorry for you and gutted that this has happened to me too, this very evening! I have been blogging for 3 years too.Thank-you for writing this post it made the upset bearable, reading your post. I feel very stupid I deleted images by going in picassa and dragging and clicking tons of images totally unaware it would pull hundreds of images from my blog, which has been entered in the Cosmo diy awards for best diy blog 2012! So gutted, as my blog has big ugly black gaps and some of diy post images have been deleted too! Blogger has lot to answer for, it should warn you of these issues at any point where it might be relevant not on a page you have to hunt down after the event!They must be aware people will try and create space more to upload new images rather than purchase space and picassa should have a function to undo this as it has a huge impact!A warning message should flash up over and over!It's stupid you can't delete images without them being pulled from your blog in the first place! Anyway rant over, who knows we might find an answer, I posted on the picassa forum asking for help. I will email you should I discover a solution. Don't give up your blog is brilliant and you have worked hard that's obvious. I need to think through my options too, if you come up with any solutions let me know won't you. Sharonstyle@fsmail.net
    http://www.mypassporttostyle.blogspot.com

    P.S You invited to the Harvey Nics press event this Wed in Manchester cause I am? It would be great to say hi if you are :) Sharon xx

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  8. Aw I'm so sorry this has happened to you too! Have you got back ups of your images? My plan is to gradually update the images but it's going to be a long and painstaking process I think! I'm also going to be backing everything up religiously and looking at a new way to host pics as the images I've replaced so far are already on my phone again :-/ I'm not at Harvey Nics this week, the way things are going I'll probs be at home trying to sort images out ha ha!

    Anyway, let me know how you get on and good luck! X

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  9. Hi Lucy, at least we are in it together! Yep was thinking along the same lines, it's just such a loong process!Keep smiling what does'n't kill us makes us stronger:) xx

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  11. I am so shocked by this, I had no idea there was a limit on photo's, and I really feel for you girls as I would be utterly devastated if I lost all of mine.

    Stories of an English rose

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