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Google Is Shutting Down Album Archive

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Re: Google Is Shutting Down Album Archive

#51

Post by mholt »

chaxor wrote: post #50
citelao wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be extremely interested in a Google Takeout viewer if you ever end up releasing one. I dealt with Google Takeout, trying to export my photos to Apple Photos (when Google was planning to charge money for old Google Workspace accounts), and I found it extremely difficult to deal with the file format. The script I wrote ( https://github.com/citelao/google_photos_takeout_to_apple_ph... ) ended up being decently r…

What is the correct tool to properly merge a large set of tar.gz files for which may have an enormous overlap of similar files, and some that have been altered just slightly? Git plus some parsing seems close in that space, as analyzing the files to create a dendrogram like tree of potential alterations to files over time by levenstein distance may be useful to approximate commit history. However, this doesn't seem t…

> What is the correct tool to properly merge a large set of tar.gz files for which may have an enormous overlap of similar files, and some that have been altered just slightly?

Can you elaborate on this? My understanding is that they should all extract into the same target folder without issues because each archive's set of files is distinct. But maybe I'm just assuming wrongly?

What exactly is your goal, too? It sounds like you are trying to find and de-duplicate visually similar images? Like what do you mean by "enormous overlap" or "altered just slightly"?

Re: Google Is Shutting Down Album Archive

#52

Post by asciii »

nocoiner wrote: post #37
asciii wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whoever sent this email should be reprimanded. I have never heard/used this product. Maybe there were layoffs and no one cares...or an uninformed individual sent the mass email with short notice. Either way, very telling! Also bad press is good press, I guess?

I got the email, thought, “huh, never heard of it.” Wasn’t curious enough to find out until I saw this post. Still didn’t understand what exactly this was or how I used it, so I clicked. 30% of the screen (on mobile) is a banner telling me I should be using chrome. Another 40% banner is telling me the site is going away soon soon soon. Another 10% is exhorting me to make connections with my account so others can see…

sounds nightmarish

Though I’m not seeing what you describe on Safari with iOS 16.5

Re: Google Is Shutting Down Album Archive

#53

Post by citelao »

mholt wrote: post #51
chaxor wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the correct tool to properly merge a large set of tar.gz files for which may have an enormous overlap of similar files, and some that have been altered just slightly? Git plus some parsing seems close in that space, as analyzing the files to create a dendrogram like tree of potential alterations to files over time by levenstein distance may be useful to approximate commit history. However, this doesn't seem t…

> What is the correct tool to properly merge a large set of tar.gz files for which may have an enormous overlap of similar files, and some that have been altered just slightly? Can you elaborate on this? My understanding is that they should all extract into the same target folder without issues because each archive's set of files is distinct. But maybe I'm just assuming wrongly? What exactly is your goal, too? It sou…

I'm not chaxor, but as far as I remember I think you're right:

If I had unzipped all the takeout directories into one giant folder, there'd be no conflicts.

Since I didn't do that, I had to do weird multi-pass parsing, since an album could be split across multiple ZIPs. I get a bit neurotic around backups like this, so I'd have loved some sort of virtualized filesystem that non-destructively represented all of those zips "merged together." But in retrospect, I should have just merged the directories into one folder---would have made parsing easier :)

I don't recall substantial problems with duplicates. Just weird renames and EXIF data mismatches. And since I was trying to archive my data, I definitely didn't want similar photos to be deduplicated.

My problems are probably different than chaxor's, though.

Re: Google Is Shutting Down Album Archive

#54

Post by SillyUsername »

PugPaladin wrote: post #25

The email I got says that Album Archive is shutting down, that I accessed it yesterday, and that I should use Google Takeout to export a single photo that I can't access (?). So I got to Google Takeout and I'm told that I have one export remaining. None of this makes any sense. I have never heard of any of these. I'm really surprised at how bad Google is at making products given how much money they have and the level…

Click that single photo. It's a folder, at least it was for me.

Re: Google Is Shutting Down Album Archive

#55

Post by SillyUsername »

WTF does this mean for Blogger?

Does it have a migration route for the photos?

If there's no migration route, a tool that could be created by one Google developer, it means thousands of people now have work to fix thousands of Blogger posts. Cumulatively ~48 hours of work for a tool has just turned into at least 48000 hours for everyone else.

What's worse is, people will fix their blogs but I bet Google will use broken links as (another) justification to shut down Blogger next.

That means those 48000 hours will be an utter waste of time.

If you ever needed proof Google have no fucking strategy or clue anymore this is it (that and shutting down Google Music when YouTube Music was incomplete, people just moved to competitors).

Re: Google Is Shutting Down Album Archive

#56

Post by predictabl3 »

mholt wrote: post #15

This appears to be NEITHER your "Archive" NOR your albums in Google Photos. This is basically a collection of media you uploaded to Blogger, Hangouts, and Picasa Web Albums. Still, doesn't hurt to Takeout your Google Photos every ~6 months. (I am working on an app that will help you organize and view them, together with your text messages, location history, and other online-only data.)

I have been getting those photos-cdp emails and noticed your name. I wait in earnest.

Re: Google Is Shutting Down Album Archive

#58

Post by bexterw21 »

mholt wrote: post #15

This appears to be NEITHER your "Archive" NOR your albums in Google Photos. This is basically a collection of media you uploaded to Blogger, Hangouts, and Picasa Web Albums. Still, doesn't hurt to Takeout your Google Photos every ~6 months. (I am working on an app that will help you organize and view them, together with your text messages, location history, and other online-only data.)

[flagged]

Re: Google Is Shutting Down Album Archive

#59

Post by sunnybeetroot »

LoganDark wrote: post #46
stOneskull wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think give some time to make sure you've changed all your log-ins. there's bound to be accounts out there you've forgotten about and might not be able to use. maybe once you don't get any important emails for 6 months? and then there's like updating and moving all google authenticator entries to something else. things like that. anyway, don't just rush it!

Note to anyone who might be reading this and thinking "that's me" - if it's you, then you should move to a password manager and create a database of all your accounts. I once spent a couple days moving every account I have ever created into KeePassXC, and changing all of their passwords to unique randomly-generated ones. You only have to do this once, and given enough time (making sure you add accounts over time that…

One step further, buy a domain that offers email forwarding. When you sign up to websites, use this domain and have your email forwarded to whatever free email provider you choose. If you change providers you only need to change your domain forwarding email.

Re: Google Is Shutting Down Album Archive

#60

Post by LoganDark »

sunnybeetroot wrote: post #59
LoganDark wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note to anyone who might be reading this and thinking "that's me" - if it's you, then you should move to a password manager and create a database of all your accounts. I once spent a couple days moving every account I have ever created into KeePassXC, and changing all of their passwords to unique randomly-generated ones. You only have to do this once, and given enough time (making sure you add accounts over time that…

One step further, buy a domain that offers email forwarding. When you sign up to websites, use this domain and have your email forwarded to whatever free email provider you choose. If you change providers you only need to change your domain forwarding email.

Oh yeah. I currently use Firefox Relay for this but they're on nearly every abuse list by this point so I can't even sign up for some websites. The downside of using domain forwarding instead though is that suddenly I'm responsible for my email and that's a risk that I don't want to take.

I do actually accept emails addressed to logandark.net. I just don't rely on it.

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