Yes it is true, Google has just announced that it will soon retire Picasa. Google announced a radically redesigned Google Photos application late last year putting a question on the relevance of Picasa.
Google is unsurprisingly telling folks to move over to Google Photos, the company’s new-and-improved photo service. The idea here is for Google to focus on one service that works across both mobile and desktop, rather than split its efforts across two different products. If you happen to have photos or videos stored away in a Picasa Web Album, Google says all of your media will already be available in Google Photos. Once you access Google Photos, you’ll be able to share, download and organize all of your media in one location. For those who aren’t keen on using Photos but would still like to view tags, captions and comments, Google will be creating a new place for you to access your Picasa Web Albums data. You’ll still be able to view, download and delete your albums, you just won’t be able to create, organize or edit your albums. Google Photos can do all of these things, so you might want to think about giving it a try if you’re on the fence.
Google has also announced that it will stop support for Picasa desktop application from March 15, 2016.
The Google blogpost reads, “As of March 15, 2016, we will no longer be supporting the Picasa desktop application. For those who have already downloaded this—or choose to do so before this date—it will continue to work as it does today, but we will not be developing it further, and there will be no future updates.”
Picasa is a photo-sharing and storing website that’s been in Google’s lineup since 2004.
UPDATE:The Picasa desktop app will continue to function, but after March 15th, you shouldn't expect any more updates. It also sounds like the download link will be going away, so you might want to also keep the install file stashed somewhere safe.
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