Picasa Web Albums Now Being Directed to Google+ Albums

In July 2011, we shared a report that Google was planning to rebrand Picasa as Google Photos later that year. Well, that didn’t happen, but it still looks like the Picasa brand name is on track to be sunsetted.

Google has begun redirecting the Picasa Web Albums URL to personal Google+ Photo Album pages.

If you absolutely can’t standing seeing your photos under anything but a Picasa logo, Google Operating System writes that there’s still a way to use the traditional Picasa interface. Simply copy and paste the following URL into your browser:

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/myphotos?noredirect=1

Voila! You’ll be ushered into the old interface that you know and love:

Once you enter that URL once, your browser will be fed a cookie that keeps you going back to the Picasa site when you visit picasaweb.google.com, bypassing the redirect for the long haul (well, at least until you clear you cookies).

Google has been pushing heavily for its photo-sharing users to transition to using its Google+ product for storing and sharing their images. Picasa has already been replaced in the Google top navigation bar with Google+ photos, so it seems like it’s only a matter of time until the brand disappears into the annals of Google history.