Is there a way to delete multiple Picasa Web Albums in one operation? [closed]

Question

I have a bunch of albums that I need to delete from Picasaweb. Is there a way to do this, or do I have to go through them one at a time to delete them?

Answer 1

You could use the Google Command Line tool.

google picasa list  
google picasa delete --title "Your album name"  

You would have to create a batch file to delete multiple albums by name.

Or try typing in part of an album name as a wildcard. Experiment with it. It will prompt you with a confirmation on every album that matches the wildcard as seen below:

yes | google picasa delete --title "2010."
HINT: No need to include "google" in interactive mode
Are you SURE you want to delete album "2010.8.09"? (y/N): y
Are you SURE you want to delete album "2010.08.09"? (y/N): y
Are you SURE you want to delete album "2010.08.14"? (y/N): y
Are you SURE you want to delete album "2010.07.29"? (y/N): y
Are you SURE you want to delete album "2010.06.09"? (y/N): y

Answer 2

This Linux shell script will delete all albums from your Picasa account. It uses curl in combination with the Google Picasa Web-API. Just change the username and password regarding your account in the script.

#!/bin/sh

# Tutorial: https://developers.google.com/gdata/articles/using_cURL
# Requires: curl, grep, sed

ACCOUNT="GOOGLE"
USERNAME="[email protected]"
PASSWORD="pass"
SERVICE="lh2"

# authenticate
AUTH_KEY=$(curl --silent "https://www.google.com/accounts/ClientLogin?accountType=$ACCOUNT&Email=$USERNAME&Passwd=$PASSWORD&service=$SERVICE" | grep 'Auth=' | sed -e 's|Auth=||g')
AUTH_HEADER="Authorization: GoogleLogin auth=$AUTH_KEY"

# get album list for deletion
RESPONSE=$(curl --silent --header "$AUTH_HEADER" "http://picasaweb.google.com/data/feed/api/user/default")
ALBUM_LIST_EDIT=$(echo "$RESPONSE" | sed -e 's|<link rel=.edit. type=.application/atom+xml. href=.|\n|g;s|./><link|\n|g' | grep '^http://')

# delete all albums
for ALBUM in $ALBUM_LIST_EDIT
do
    echo "$ALBUM" | sed 's|.*api|\.|g'
    curl --request DELETE --header "$AUTH_HEADER" "$ALBUM"
done

Answer 3

There doesn't appear to be a way to delete multiple albums from the web interface. You'll need to do them one at a time. (It makes sense, really. Imagine the mess you would make if you deleted whole swaths of your albums at once in error.)

Answer 4

(originally from a comment by Shannon Wagner)

In Picasa 3, the feature to delete empty web albums is found at Tools | Experimental | Delete Empty Web Albums. (source)

I have used this feature many times.

Answer 5

You can remove multiple PWA online albums from within the Picasa application: http://support.google.com/picasa/answer/187407

Tools → Batch Upload → Remove Online → Simply select the albums you'd like to remove and click OK.