I started to import all of my photos into Picasa but then wanted to rearrange how they were organised and needed to delete all of my albums that had been created (some 200+ folders). The only way to do this normally is to go into each album, drop down the menu, select delete and confirm the deletion. This was going to take a long time! I searched about and found that this can be done using the Google CL tool.
Download the CL Tool from Google: Google CL Tool
Extract the zip file to a suitable location
Open up the command prompt
Navigate to where the CL tool was downloaded to
Run 'google.exe' to display the cl promt '>'
Run the following command (this will delete any albums starting with these characters):
picasa delete --title a|b|c|d|e|f|g|h|i|j|k|l|m|n|o|p|q|r|s|t|u|v|w|x|y|z|A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M|N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z|0|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9
Enter your email address for picasa, this will open up a browser window to enable you to auth with google. Login using your email address / password.
If Google tries to get you to login using a Google Apps for Domains account, then manually type in the link shown in the command prompt into your browser, excluding everything after (and including) the '&hc=' towards the end of the link
You can setup cl tool to not prompt for deleting an album by altering the config file found in 'C:\Users\yourusername\.googlecl\'
March 31st, 2013 - 13:16
Hi!
I had to use the googlecl in Linux from source.
Using it in Windows it generates erros whan albuns has accents on its names.
Like this one:
“Aniversário Alex 2013″
So, running from Linux using souce, all albuns were erased properly!
Thank you!
March 20th, 2013 - 06:43
Thanks for a really great tip! Since google just making things worse as time goes I have decieded to remove all of my +500 albums as well. Just the fact that they do not let you download uploaded videos in full resolution is terrible.
Btw… From what I understand you now need to execute it like this:
google –yes picasa delete –title “.*”
January 27th, 2013 - 19:44
fantastic… many thanks.
November 30th, 2012 - 16:48
Thanks! picasa delete -title “” worked perfect. FYI – you don’t have to wait to the next prompt to press ‘y’ then ENTER. Instead, to delete all, just click ‘y’ and ENTER as many times as there are albums.
July 31st, 2012 - 12:28
In current version you can tell google cl not to prompt on deletion using the parameter “–yes”
May 20th, 2012 - 14:47
There is now a way to do this in Picasa, under Batch Upload there is a Remove button under the upload button.
April 27th, 2012 - 21:32
Thank you so much for this! Quick tip: I discovered that the following syntax will delete all albums as well:
picasa delete --title ".*"I needed this because some of my albums started with an open parenthesis, and the command-line tool didn’t like me passing that to the title parameter.
Thanks again!
February 19th, 2012 - 16:00
Thanks a lot! I couldn’t find the command to edit in the config-file but you can simple press “y and enter” 200 times in a row and the programs starts deleting your 200 albums. Took me only about 5 minutes to delete 50GB worth of pictures, thanks!
January 15th, 2012 - 06:41
Grazie, Grazie, Grazie!!!!
Veramente ottimo!
December 3rd, 2011 - 12:04
That’s great! I’ve erased my 200+ albums in 5 minutes!
Thank you very much!
November 23rd, 2011 - 17:44
thanks!
July 10th, 2011 - 18:52
Thanks for this – saved me so much time! Note that in the latest version the delete_prompt no longer works. This can instead be done by specifying “–yes” in the command line you mention.
June 24th, 2011 - 21:19
Your Artical really saved my Weekend! Thank you!
June 19th, 2011 - 10:23
Instead of writing such a long command try this if you need to delete all:
picasa delete –title “”
January 12th, 2011 - 23:06
Thanks – Saves me lots of time. Greetings from Germany – Armin