Backup Picasa to External Hard Drive

Are you like me and have a lot of pictures?  Like, 33,000+?

Well, I recently purchased a new computer and I’m trying to figure out how to transfer my photos, using Picasa, from one computer to another.  I’ve also been wondering for a while how to backup Picasa to my external hard drive because burning 17 DVDs seems like an awful amount of work.

So I figured out how to backup Picasa to an external hard drive and wanted to share this info with you.  So here is how to get started:

1) Click “Tools – > Back Up Pictures

2) Click “New Set” in the “Create a Set or use an existing one” box

3) A “New Backup Set” window will appear.  You can create a name for your backup set.  This name will be a way for you to recall this backup later.  I would name it “Backup to External” or something along those lines so you don’t confuse your backup sets.   Under “Backup type” you can choose either CD/DVD or disk-to-disk.  It even says in the parenthesis “for external..drives”.  Now you can use the “Choose…” button to navigate and select your external hard drive.  Once you have selected your hard drive, you will be able to select the “Create” button.

4) You’ll now want to choose the folders and albums you want to backup.  The default is to show just the files since your previous backup.  If this is your first backup to your external, then you want to “Select All”  Give it a few minutes to calculate how much space will be needed.

5) Click “Backup”

That’s it!

Now hopefully for my next post, I can talk you through how to restore this backup to your new computer (once I get Picasa installed on it!)

Paul