As part of Google's effort to make Google Photos the go-to for online photo storage, the company has finally decided to shut down Picasa.
Google has published a post on the Picasa blog for the first time in years, however, the post was only to say that Picasa would be "retired" in the upcoming months.
"We know for many of you, a great deal of care has gone into managing your photos and videos using Picasa — including the hours you've invested and the most precious moments you've trusted us with," said the blog post. "So we will take some time in order to do this right and provide you with options and easy ways to access your content."
Of course, the decision isn't all that surprising. Picasa was bought by Google way back in 2004, and for years, has been pretty much ignored. The service was integrated into Google+ Photos, which was then spun off from Google+ simply as Google Photos.
It's not known why Google waited so long to put an end to Picasa, however, some suggest that perhaps the company was waiting to make sure Google Photos actually caught on.
Of course, users of Picasa won't be totally left in the dark. Their images will still appear in Google Photos and will be organized in the same way they were in Picasa. Users will also have access to their Picasa Web Albums data, however, they will not be able to create new albums. The Picasa desktop application will also no longer be supported.
