Picasa and Picasa Web Albums Help

Picasa Web Albums makes it easy to share your photos with the world -- or you can choose to keep your photos as private as you'd like. Use album visibility options to control the privacy of your albums. You can set your album visibility options during the upload process and change them at any time in Picasa and Picasa Web Albums.

Public

Set your album visibility to "Public" to make them viewable to anyone who knows the URL of your public gallery. This URL is easy to share -- it's short and based on your Google Account username: http://picasaweb.google.com/[Username]. Your public albums may also appear in public search. Learn more about public search.

Unlisted

Set your album to "Unlisted" to limit who can see your album. All unlisted albums have an authorization key in the web address; the key is a combination of letters and numbers which make the web address very difficult to guess. Anyone that has the exact web address will be able to see your unlisted album.

Sign-in required to view

Select the "Sign-in required to view" option to set the highest level of privacy for your album -- you specify who has permission to view it, and those viewers must sign in to their Google Account to verify their identity. Users without a Google Account will be prompted to create one. Anyone not included on the album's "Shared with" access list will be unable to view the album.

You can use the Share buttons in Picasa and Picasa Web Albums to explicitly add your visitors to an album access list -- the "Shared with" list. This allows them to view the album on your public gallery regardless of a change in the album visibility. Learn more about adding and removing visitors from your "Shared with" access list.