Free Online Photo Albums
This article originally appeared in one of my other blogs. I have updated it and am sharing with you. Most are free accounts and some do offer an upgrade if you pay an annual fee.
Here are some alternatives for photo albums that provide a basic FREE account. These can be linked up to your site (webpages in particular) and you save some space on your site by using an album vs storing in a directory then loading pictures on a webpage from your directory. A few of them also offer uploading from your cell phone.
Fotopic -- you get 250MBs of space and several skins to choose from for a background to your album. You can direct link images and get a very generous 1000 views a day (yes, per day!). If you link to your galleries, you get another generous 1GB per day in transfer! That is much more than most places offer. Nice main page for you also.
DropFiles -- you get 250MBs of space, 1GB bandwidth transfer. You can host other file types such as .doc, .zip, .rar, .exe as well.
AlbumTown -- you get 50MBs of space. You also can post photos on forums or in blogs or EBay. Stats and comments are free too. Inexpensive if you wish to upgrade and pay.
Update: Something is not right with this site, there are many complaints and no sign of management to help/support so I am not sure exactly what the story is.
PictureTrail -- 50MBs here. You can customize your albums and add music. You also get an email showing which pictures have the most views. Recently, they have added the feature that you can post pictures from your albums on EBay or forums. They offer quite a few slide shows or badges you can add to your website. You also get an easy to customize main page with a blog now.
WebShots -- Storage for 240 pictures, no MB limit mentioned. Stats for only 3 albums. The cost subscription is not bad if you wish to pay for a few years, overall it is the cheapest. Pictures can be emailed out as photocards. Sometimes we just go there and read comments or vote for pictures for fun when we are bored. LOL
PhotoBucket -- 25 MBs, and 1.5gig of bandwidth per month. But WOW! Besides being able to post images on forums, EBay, etc, they also have two nifty little gimmicks, a streaming photo show or you can make a "postage stamp" of 4 or 9 pictures that flip on the screen one at a time. Select your pictures you wish to show and they provide you with the copy and paste HTML needed. Simple. Upgrades available. I post my pics here and then use the URL they provide to post the picture on my website. This saves me space on my website and decreases the size of my page for faster downloading and no shut downs from Yahoo. (Yahoo only allows 4.2MB transfers per hour, the smaller my page is to download especially without loaded pics on my site but from the use of PhotoBucket, the more downloads I can get with out getting a Yahoo shut down.)
Yahoo albums will shut down in the Fall of 2007. (edited 5/19/07) They will offer to transfer your images to one of several accounts.
Flickr -- you can sign up for this easily if you have a Yahoo email or ID. It is free of course but you are limited to 20MB uploads per calendar month and a reset of bandwidth back to zero each month. It is important that you upload EXACTLY what you want and do not delete. The deletion counts against you and STAYS put till the new month. Your actual limit is 200 uploads. If you have 400 uploads, the first 200 uploads remain hidden on your account (but still show on your webpages or blog) but only the recent 200 uploads show in your album. You must check in at least every 90 days to keep your free account. So an upload a month may be on the agenda for you. They have neat features though and you can upgrade with a yearly subscription fee. You can embed photo badges onto your site.
ImageShack -- you can upload as much, as you want, no limit, and SAVE the URLs. Some URLs expire since they have to be downloaded x amount of times to keep them on the server. They have just offered accounts for albums. They also have some widgets.
Fotki -- now I liked them till they revamped and reduced the size of my original free account to 1MB!!! However, there are a few other fabulous features there that are great and free so if you just want a small album, you might as well go here and just remove old uploads and update with new ones. It is a costly annual fee of around $50.. OUCH!
Update: Free accounts are now up to 50MBs. They also have a photo badge you can embed on your site. Links to add to websites and auctions now provided.
ZoomShare -- Here you get a cute little 4 page site with a number of skins to choose from. You can select the pages you wish to have. The basic 4 pages you get are Main, Blog, Photos, and Links. You can discard any of them and select another in it's place. Photo uploads and files are limited to 50MBs now. You do get a free email account too "yourname@zoomshare.com". Great for a beginner or a small site to share your hobby, family, or even business (they offer a shopping cart feature). You can upgrade for a monthly fee to include more pages and more space. Update 5/19/07 -- offering MORE webpages and file storage (250 MBs) on free accounts. Upload only one photo at a time on free accounts.
ImageStation -- unlimited uploads but you need to maintain your account.
Social URL -- formally known as Snap and Share, unlimited storage space, direct linking for journals, forums, and auction sites. Password protection and integrate your albums onto any website. I thought this was a nice site for free. You also get a nice page to showcase your albums and add some HTML also. Since the upgrade, they now have little badges you can add to your sites with your photo and link.
My Photo Album -- unlimited storage space, NO direct linking for journals, forums, and auction sites. Password protection and integrate your albums onto any website. Stats for album and picture views. I thought this was a nice site for free. They will not accept some free email accounts when registering. You need to order prints at least once a year to keep your account. They offer a nice slide show to embed. Neglected accounts get deleted.
Other info:
Slide Widget Resources
Resizing a Slide Widget
Hope that helps someone. If you know of any other site, leave me a comment.
