Yahoo! Photos Service to Close Soon

I personally have used Yahoo! Photos for many years to store away keepsake photos. I never really paid much attention to the account itself, only checking in on it every year or so to remember old times. Luckily I checked my email from an old Yahoo account recently and I found a message about Yahoo Photos closing.

If you use the photos section of Yahoo to store your pictures, you'll want to back them up soon. Yahoo has announced that it is closing down Yahoo! Photos and making the transition to Flickr, an affiliated photo sharing service. Yahoo! Photos is set to close on Thursday, September 20, 2007 at approximately 9 p.m. PDT. If you do not choose another photo storage service or download your photos, they will be deleted and no longer available for viewing or download. Any links to these photos or pictures used in other areas of service such as Yahoo! 360 will not work anymore after the closing date.

At least they are giving us plenty of notice. Fortunately, Yahoo is offering members several options for photo storage. They will give you the chance to move your photos to Shutterfly, Snapfish, Photobucket,Kodak Gallery or Flickr. If you choose Flickr you get an instant transfer option that's somewhat easier. You can also purchase an archive CD if you used the New Yahoo! Photos. Yahoo has an affiliate partner, Englaze, that will offer a discounted price of $6.95 to Yahoo! Photos users for archived photo CD's up to 700 MB in size. Be sure and take advantage of this option before you move your photos though. Once you choose to move them you will no longer have the choice to purchase an archived CD.

If you're not sure which photo sharing service to use, check out this site from Digital Trends. This review includes overviews and ratings of each service except for Kodak Gallery. You can see reviews of Kodak Gallery at this site from Epinions. Take all options and features in consideration. Note prices for printing and other premium services if you might be interested and make the transition to the site which you think will best suit your needs.

You will want to download your stored photos yourself and save them before you choose any alternative. Yahoo gives you this option when you choose to move your pictures. I found that once you choose the instant transition to Flickr, you cannot access your photos for a while.

This move apparently does not apply to Yahoo! Photos International users.

Visit http://closing.photos.yahoo.com to decide what you want to do with your photos before September 20, 2007.