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I have stressed the importance of backing up your photos. Today I will like to introduce FlickrSync, which will make the process of backing up and synchronizing your desktop pictures to your flickr account that must easier.

FlickrSync is a freeware photo synchronization application for flickr users. It displays your local folders and your flickr sets and it can establish synchronization rules between them. This way you can manage all your photos locally and FlickrSync will keep them updated in flickr.

That’s the promise and I must say it works pretty well.

Download and Install

First, download the application and run through the standard installation on Windows Vista. If you’re on Windows XP, you will need to download and install Microsoft .Net 3.0 before installing FlickrSync.

Setting up

Start the application, the first time round you will need to link to your flickr account and authorize the application. Once done, you should see your photo sets.

On the left window pane is the folder structure of your PC. On the right is all the photosets on your flickr account.

Assuming on my PC, I have a folder known as Norman – 2nd Month which I want to backup and synchronize to my flickr account. “Click” to select it.

This will bring up an application window. If this is the first time you’re backing up this set, you will want to Input a “Title” and “Description”. This will automatically create a new photo set on your flickr account, which will contain all the pictures in your desktop “Norman 2nd Month” folder.

However if you want to synchronize with an existing set, browse for the set on the left window pane and select it. There are several methods of “matching”, the default will do just fine. You might want to tick the “Never Delete Image from Flickr” checkbox. Click OK to continue.

You will now go back into the main application window and notice the desktop folder you just selected is marked in red. This signifies that this folder is setup for synchronization. You can add as many folders as you wish.

Once everything is setup, go to Sync, select “View and Sync All”.

“Preparing Synchronization” will pop up. Wait and you’re on your way.

You will see this window showing you all the changes. There are several command, REPLACE, NEW, and DELETE (if application).

NOTE:

Synchronization is only done one way: Your local folders or images are never changed; Everything is updated in flickr to match your local information.

What this statement means is if you have got 10 pictures in your desktop folder, and flick have 15, unless you check the “Never Delete Image from Flickr” as previously mentioned during the setup, the PHOTOS IN YOUR FLICKR ACCOUNT WILL BE GONE!

In addition, do note the program will not allow you to download pictures from your flickr account.

Once you click “Sync”, you will see the progress bar start working, pictures that are processed will be grayed out and given a green tick. If you’re uploading a lot of high resolution pictures, this will take a while.

Conclusion

This application have some rough edges, namely it sometimes wants to replace photos which I did no changes to. And there isn’t any advance option for you to exclude certain photos before you click the “Sync” button. These are only minor quirks and I can definitely live with it.

When will this be useful? In my case, if a project spans across a month, and you need to update the pictures, then this will save you precious time. Just drop the pictures from your camera to the folder you setup, start FlickrSync, “View and Sync All”, “Sync”. Simple and Free.

Another reason for you to use Flickr.