Photobucket question

[MEANZ06]

Now that they have the paid subscription how do I get my pics off there? 50% are junk but the other 50% are family/salvageable pics... I mean if I have to pay a one time fee I'm okay but not a subscription.

[Torqaholic]

After holding pictures hostage for several months they removed their image blocker for a limited time to allow people access to their pictures. That boat sailed, it only lasted for about a month as I recall. I copied the ones I wanted to keep by searching message boards where I had previously posted them and copying from there. Doubt that still works though.

[snide]

Haven't logged in there for years.

[BayouCountry]

Call them up and see if they will set your account to a free trial account so you can download your photos. Other than that, just subscribe and then cancel after all photos are downloaded. I would think they would give you the free trial to avoid a bad review, but some companies can’t see past their nose.

[Mick]

Originally Posted by BayouCountry

Call them up and see if they will set your account to a free trial account so you can download your photos. Other than that, just subscribe and then cancel after all photos are downloaded. I would think they would give you the free trial to avoid a bad review, but some companies can’t see past their nose.

I think Photobucket made it clear that they do not give a single shit about anyone who hasn't paid them a fee.

[Aerovette]

I ended up paying only to find out that if you want to pull them down, you have to do it one picture at a time. I found no bulk download ability. Sure, you'll find instructions on how to do it, but the options in those instructions aren't there.

[dvarapala]

Never trust a third party hosting site like PhotoSuckIt - always keep you own local backups of all your important photos and other files.

[the new me]

Why would anybody pay for Photobucket? Photobucket's minimum price is $6/month. For $3.50 a month, you can get an entire web server with unlimited disk space at e.g. hostgator.com (there are others). With that you can host multiple websites, have an unlimited number of email addresses, store as many photos as you want, etc. (You also have to own your domain name for each website. Those cost $10-20/year depending on which registrar, e.g. godaddy.com, you use.) You never get locked out of it, you never run out of space, you can store your files on it for offsite backup. Yeah, you have to learn a little bit, but not much, in order to do it. It's not that hard. Have your kid show you how. (The hosting service will also have a ton of tutorials showing you their recommended methods, how to use their free website builder tools, etc. Those aren't necessarily the best methods, but they'll work.) And best of all you don't have to do anything one picture at a time.

[Aerovette]

Originally Posted by the new me

Why would anybody pay for Photobucket? Photobucket's minimum price is $6/month. For $3.50 a month, you can get an entire web server with unlimited disk space at e.g. hostgator.com (there are others). With that you can host multiple websites, have an unlimited number of email addresses, store as many photos as you want, etc. (You also have to own your domain name for each website. Those cost $10-20/year depending on which registrar, e.g. godaddy.com, you use.) You never get locked out of it, you never run out of space, you can store your files on it for offsite backup. Yeah, you have to learn a little bit, but not much, in order to do it. It's not that hard. Have your kid show you how. (The hosting service will also have a ton of tutorials showing you their recommended methods, how to use their free website builder tools, etc. Those aren't necessarily the best methods, but they'll work.) And best of all you don't have to do anything one picture at a time.

When I signed up, it was free. Then they held my pictures hostage so I paid. THEN I found out I can't bulk download. Then I saw a squirrel and never started pulling them down a few at a time.

[the new me]

No criticism intended. I get what happened to you. I was commenting on their scheme to force people to subscribe. I can't imagine spending $72/year or more to host my photos.

As dvarapala wrote above: Never trust a third-party hosting site.

Always have your own local copies of your stuff. Even with my web-hosting suggestion above. For example a fire at a web-hosting company knocked out millions of websites in Stuttgart this past March: https://startpage.com/do/search?quer...rt+server+fire

I keep 10 levels deep at work. At home, 3 levels. On inexpensive hard drives. The most recent home backups are brought to the office. The most recent office backups are brought home. Daily.

I do not use cloud storage at all. I do have some cloud-hosted assets, but they are all copies of data I keep on my own equipment. Remember, there is no such thing as "the cloud." It's just somebody else's computer which as we saw in Stuttgart can burn or otherwise fail. The cloud can be part of a backup strategy but not the whole shebang. Your data is your problem, not theirs.

This info is shared just for perspective on what "some" people do. Me being the "some" in this case.