Google, Picasa for Mac?

Filed in: Downloads, Google — September 3rd, 2007

As a Mac user, I am looking for a photo organizer replacement for iPhoto. I am using iPhoto `06, it is nice application but it has become slow and resource-hungry when you have many photos.

Picasa Screenshot

Google’s Picasa might be a good choice of free photo orgranizer but it does not have Mac version although Google released Picasa for Linux in 2006. There is no sign of Picasa for Mac yet.

On the other side, Google bundled Picasa together with other free software (including antivirus, anti-spyware, etc) as Google Pack. All the softwares are free and full version (no trial).

google, picasa, mac

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Alex

The easiest way to get picasa on a mac is to use wine.
Install X11 from the mac install disk.
Install macports
then 'sudo /opt/local/bin/port install wine'
download picasa for windows and install it how you would otherwise with wine!

Kathleen

I am with Ben! Same EXACT situation! I love Picasa so much, that I just bought Parallels...but I am having the hardest time getting Parallels installed on my mac. The directions are horrible, and the support is only through email, unless you want to pay $30 a call. Then the email techs only respond once a day! I have been working on the installation for 5 days now and still it is not complete. I am terrified that once I get parallels installed, that it will still not run Picasa. Does anyone know if it will? I appreciate any help!

david

Picasa for Mac is allegedly coming out 2008:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/15/exclusive-...

:)

dep

I have to imagine that Picasa for Mac is *right* around the corner. Seems strange that there is even a linux version but no mac version, especially given how "multimedia-centered" mac laptops seem to be.

You know they're chugging away on it as we speak.

ben

I have been a Windows user since 3.1 days. I found Picasa a few years ago and I can't praise it enough. I got a MacBook Pro last Christmas and the transition has been super easy. BUT, the ONLY program I miss deeply is Picasa. I used to think Picasa was an iPhoto clone and I was excited to see what iPhoto was all about; I was sorely disappointed. There are some huge things that make Picasa #1 in my book.

1. Lightning fast - I have over 15,000 6+ mega pixel photos and I am just amazed at how fast it sorts, scrolls, filters, searches, etc.

2. Watch Folders - Leaves everything in it's place, wherever you want it. You can kind of do this with iPhoto but is a pain. It also handles folders going away or being added very gracefully. Like I said I have a Mac laptop and I really don't want to store my 40+GB of photos on my 80 GB drive. I have all my photos on an external drive and I recently reformatted and installed Windows. When I reinstalled Picasa and pointed it back to the watch folder there were all my pictures, tags, notes, edits, etc. It was amazing.

3. Nondestructive edit - All changes are kept in an ini file, you can always undo back to the original. Yes, iPhoto does this too but it makes a copy of the original and hides it somewhere deep in the file system (see #2).

4. Seamless integration with Gmail - super easy to resize and send. (okay, I think iPhoto is close here, but not with Gmail :))

5. Export - It is amazingly easy to export a subset of pictures based on a search, star, tag, etc. This export can be auto resized and put wherever you want. Great for digital photo frames, CD slide-shows, etc. I spent like an hour trying to do this in iPhoto and kept getting driven to .Mac. NO I DON"T WANT A .MAC ACCOUNT!

6. Import - I know iPhoto has a decent import function, but Picasa's is very intuitive and it simply creates a folder at a defined location with the same name as the album. This makes it very easy to find manually if you have to.

There are other subtleties, but these are the main points that break the deal on iPhoto. Notice that I didn't list Free as a benefit. Yes, it is nice that Picasa is free, but I would be more than willing to pay for it. I am on the verge of buying Parallels and a copy of Windows just to run the damn thing on the Mac. Yes, to me Picasa is almost worth the $150+ it would cost to do that.

wong

I hate iPhoto for taking too much of the hard disk and lot of memory... But this Picasa require iPhoto... Shit~~~~

Nicholas

Hello, I use the Picasa on my Windows and I love it. Since you have Mac, why not get yourself the new iLife? I not a Mac user, but I always wanted to use the iPhoto, so far Picasa is the nearest proram that looks and work like iPhoto. I don't really know, so far I know that there is a new iLife and iPhoto in it is new too =)

kew

why not upgrade to iLife 08 for $79.....

Paul Tan

use iphotobuddy to separate your iphoto libraries. this should make iphoto run faster

LcF

@Weilian: thanks for the tip. I forgot the software come with canon camera. however, they look ugly..

Jake

Well in theory you should be able to compile Linux programs on Mac with enough work, but since Google didn't release the source code I guess it isn't possible. On Linux I use digiKam myself. It's a nice app.