It frustrates me when a company provides a service, but doesn’t support user behavior that would logically ensue from using the service. A case in point is the Flickr photo sharing site. According to their own mission statement (
http://www.flickr.com/about/), they “
want to help people make their photos available to the people who matter to them...” and they “...want to
get photos and video into and out of the system in as many ways as we can...”
A logical assumption is that bulk downloading of photos posted by one’s friends would be supported. However, this is not the case and it was a source of frustration to me and others (if the results of a simple Google search are to be believed). Luckily, my Google search resulted in a number of promising leads.
FlickrDown
The first I tried was to use FlickrDown created by greggman (
http://blog.greggman.com/blog/flickrdown/). While the posts that led me to his site were a few years old, I hoped that it would mean a new and improved version would be waiting for me. Unfortunately, the first thing that greeted me was the following warning
The application GUI is simple and intuitive
I entered my email address and was presented with the error
I then entered my user name and received the same error. At that point I accepted that greggman’s warning was still valid and I would get no further using his software. Happily, removing the software was as easy as installing it and I was on to the next solution.
Firefox extension
My next attempt was to use a Firefox extension created by Jason Ting and available from his site JZ*LABS (
http://www.jzlabs.com/). The current version was Flickr Original 1.0.7 for Firefox (
http://www.jzlabs.com/2008/12/16/firefox-extension-flickr-original/). Clicking on the link started the Firefox extension installation
Once the installation was complete and I had restarted Firefox, I went to my Flickr account to try downloading photos. The first problem I encountered was that the extension does not allow bulk downloads. However, I was willing to tolerate that if I could download each picture with two mouse clicks. I right-clicked on an image to bring up the following menu,
left clicked on the “Download Original Flickr Image (Y)” option, and got the following error:
Repeated attempts on other photos, in other sets, and from different people gave the same result. I uninstalled the extension, restarted Firefox, and continued my search.
Downloadr
My third attempt was and application called Downloadr available from (
http://janten.com/downloadr/).
Installation of this application was also straightforward and you are warned ahead of time that you will also need .NET 3.5 and Windows Installer 3.1.
The Downloadr GUI is also simple and intuitive.
After entering my Flickr user name and clicking the search button, I was presented with the six images in my account that are publicly available. Knowing I was missing something, I searched through the menu options until I found the option to “Authenticate”.
Clicking the “Authenticate” option opened an Information dialog.
Clicking “OK” opened a Flickr web page.
Since I specifically asked for this linking, I clicked the “NEXT” button on the right hand side. This opened another Flickr web page where I clicked “OK, I’LL AUTHORIZE IT”.
The last web page that opened was welcome both because my authorization was successful and because Flickr provides an easy way to revoke authorization at any time.
At last I was ready to try bulk downloading. I clicked the “Set” tab in Downloadr, entered a friend’s “Username”, and clicked the “Search” button. When I selected one of the sets that appeared and clicked the “Search” button again, thumbnails of the images appeared. At this point it is not intuitive how to download the images. It is necessary to left click in the image field and then type “Ctrl-A” to select all the images. At that point you can click the “Download selected” button, select your destination, and the transfer will begin. My first attempt was 159 images for a total download size of 58.7MB. The transfer occurred flawlessly and required no further interaction from me.
Bulkr (updated on 03APR2013
)
As an infrequent user of Flickr, I had no reason to bulk download again until recently. Since originally writing this blog, I have migrated from Windows XP to Windows 7. When I attempted to install Downloadr, I received a system warning that the executable contained code which would put my computer at risk. Being risk averse, I cancelled the installation and went looking for another solution. I quickly found a reference to the Flicker
AppGarden. A search for "download" let me to
Bulkr which has received many positive reviews. Installation of Bulkr was straightforward and it also automatically installed the required AdobeAir application. Encouraged, I launched Bulkr, identified a set of photos a friend had posted, and pasted the link into Bulkr. Unfortunately, I could not bulk download because one needs the paid version to see more than a fraction of available sets. I suppose if one is a regular user of Flickr, the $39 lifetime upgrade to Pro is worth it. As an infrequent user, I find the price too steep. It would have been kind of the Bulkr creator to provide a trial version which limits the total number of sets which can be downloaded rather than arbitrarily selecting a subset of the available sets.
Conclusion
I find it strange that Flickr would provide a mission statement and an API that promote the development of this type of application, but would not provide the solution themselves. To that end, I greatly appreciate that there are those who are technically competent and highly motivated to create solutions. Efforts like Janten’s deserve to be rewarded either through positive reviews or financially. This blog serves the former, and I had no hesitation using the donation link Janten provides to satisfy the latter.
