FAQ: What to do with your Yahoo photos

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I print a lot of photos. How much does printing cost at the other sites?
For 4x6-inch, 5x7-inch and 8x10-inch shots, Flickr charges 15 cents, 59 cents and $1.99, respectively; Shutterfly charges 19 cents, 99 cents and $3.99; Kodak Gallery charges 15 cents, 99 cents and $3.99; Snapfish charges 12 cents, 79 cents (though per-photo prices go down if you purchase multiple pictures) and $2.99; and Photobucket, through a partnership with Qoop, charges 15 cents, 99 cents and $2.99.

If you don't want your prints mailed, Flickr, Shutterfly and Kodak Gallery let you pick up prints at Target, and Kodak Gallery customers also can use CVS Pharmacy, Ritz Camera, Wolf Camera and some other options.

How long do I have to choose?
Generally, customers in the United States have until September 20. Yahoo plans to advise international customers later this year.

What if I wait past the deadline?
Your photos will be deleted--except in the case of photos belonging to customers of subscribers to Yahoo's broadband partnerships with AT&T and Verizon. Those subscribers, if they do nothing else, will have their photos automatically migrated to a Flickr pro account.

What will happen to my photos' titles, captions, tags and albums?
Some information will be retained, but not all. Photobucket won't keep tags, ratings, captions or per-image privacy settings. Shutterfly and Snapfish don't support tags and smart albums, a relatively new organizational feature at Yahoo Photos. However, Shutterfly will save tag information and plans to make them available in the future. Kodak Gallery doesn't support tags, smart albums or the ability to set albums as public or private.

Flickr will preserve tags, captions and EXIF (exchangeable image file format) data that records details such as the camera model that shot a picture and the exposure length. And it will convert albums into its equivalent term, sets. Flickr will make all photos it imports private by default, although it offers a tool by which users can switch all the ones that were public in Yahoo Photos so they're public in Flickr, too.

Book and calendar projects at Yahoo Photos can't be transferred anywhere, so you'd better print them soon if you want more copies.

Can I transfer my images to all the sites to try them out?
No. If you want to kick the tires at the new sites, sign up and upload some photos, because the Yahoo Photos transfer can only be done once, and it's irreversible. Once the transfer is finished, your photos won't be available at Yahoo Photos.

I have 58,000 images and 496 albums at Yahoo Photos. Will I be able to see them at Flickr?
If you have a pro account, yes. Otherwise, you'll only be able to see your 200 most recently uploaded photos and three most recently created sets. And if you're used to uploading huge quantities of photos, beware: Flickr pro account users have no limits, but free account holders may only upload 100MB per month.

How long will it take to move my photos?
It will vary depending on how many photos the other sites have to digest. When a migration to Flickr begins, the site sends an e-mail saying the transfer "could take a little while." And it might not work on the first try: "We have experienced a few technical challenges due to the large volume of photos," the company said. "However our engineers are working to resolve the issue and stabilize the migration."

[mrlemarquis]

YAHOO.........? WHOOO.......?

The question is more "what to do with Yahoo!"
It appears most of the high placed experts/managers are leaving,I personally have a grudge against their search engine which picked out places I had never been on the web and inserted them in their search results given under my "alias", the "Yahoo" groups area is a catastrophy,The once upon a time EXCELLENT "Flickr" programme is almost unusable because of the complicated "log-in" procedure imposed by Yahoo, and all in all, I wouldn't use Yahoo at all, except - strangely - their "home page personalised" service is actually the best from Google/MSN/Yahoo - but for how long?
I've already stopped using "Flickr", with systems as good as "Picasa" around, who needs it?
It would be nice, and competitive, to have an alternative to the Google system, but frankly, the only other possibility is still MSN.
Shame-but I think I'll just let my Yahoo photos disappear, but WOE OH WOE if I see them turning up elsewher on the Web!

[brichard]

This is exactly why...

I haven't yet posted any of my photos online yet. No matter how big the brand name, you have no way of knowing whether one day they will shut you down for whatever reason.

I keep master copies of all my digital photos (taken at maximum quality setting for my camera) on my hard drive.

I back everything up to an external hard drive which I keep at my mom's house, in a fire retardent safe.

When I have time to buy web hosting, build a family website with selected photos and point my domain name to it, then I will post my photos online.

I realize many users are not quite savvy enough to take all the above steps; and it's a pain in the rear end, but that's my two cents worth for today.

[niravabhavsar]

Migration is one step only.

Although it sucks that yahoo photos is closing and we have been forced to move all photos to other services it seems that migration process is very intuitive and only one step. Can't complain about that. I didnt' know it was closing until I logged into yahoo photos and then they didn't have migration process noted anywhere at the time.
But, some time last week I noticed they had buttons in yahoo photos that would let you migrate photos to other services. Since I already had Flickr and Kodak accounts it was very easy for me. It did take 2-3 hours (in the background) to migrate all my 2000 photographs. And, I was notified via email once it was complete. On the plus side I got additional 3 months of flickr pro account. For me it was worth spending 10 mins.
Perhaps it took less time for me to move my photos than reading this story and other users' expeirences and writing my own.
Good luck!

[mythu]

Let me knw

hey can i know where these buttons to mirate the photos are located please let me know?

[hdansky]

winkflash.com

I've had it for years. It's free and I have tons of photos on the site. The price for printing and shipping is also pretty cheap.
www.winkflash.com

[yeungj]

www.imagestation.com

Yeah, sucks to Yahoo! Photo users. Even though I have a Yahoo! Photo account but I never used it (I only have 1 album). I always used Sony Imagestation when they were free for over 10 years since I was in high school. Now they charged $4.99USD/yr for their Silver plan. That's why I had the Yahoo! Photo created but was too lazy to move over 1000 pictures to Yahoo! plus $4.99/yr was not much and am happy now that I didn't make the switch back than. I don't print much so it's not a bad deal and I live in Canada so will never print from them anyways. I used either Futureshop or Walmart for printing.

[AwesomeSpaceMonkey]

Free Flickr Pro for DSL subs?

"Yahoo members who have Verizon and AT&T broadband subscriptions will get free pro accounts for as long as they subscribe."

Is this true? I haven't been able to verify this anywhere.

[biverson1]

AT&T users not given same Yahoo Photos migration option HELP

While regular Yahoo Photos users are given a variety of options, as a reward for our monthly fees, AT&T Yahoo customers can't migrate to anything but Flickr which is not a viable alternative in my book.

I have been told by AT&T Technical Services "the option to switch to Snapfish is available for regular Yahoo! users only. At this time, Flickr, is the option available for AT&T Yahoo! users"

Is there any way to get AT&T to change or make exceptions to this less than customer friendly policy? Or notwithstanding that is there any way to transfer the photos under my AT&T Yahoo Photos account to a regular Yahoo Photos account, so that I may then migrate them to Snapfish?