User Guide

Collections
Folders on Disk
This collection displays folders on your computer that contain pictures or movies, sorted by
date, with the original folder names as they appear on your computer’s hard drive. Changes
you make to the folders in this collection affect the matching folders on your computer’s hard
drive. Renaming a folder in Picasa is the same as renaming it in Windows Explorer.
• Adjust which pictures and folders appear. Only folders that Picasa is configured to
scan appear in this collection. To modify where Picasa scans for pictures, select “Folder
Manager” on the “Tools” menu. Use the settings there to select or de-select the folders
Picasa scans, choosing from these options: “Scan Once,” “Remove From Picasa” and
“Watch For Changes.”
• Move pictures between folders. Select a picture. With your mouse, drag and drop the
picture to its new folder. To select more than one picture, hold down the Shift key on your
keyboard as you select pictures. If you move a picture into a different folder on disk, Picasa
will remind you that you’re about to move the actual file on your computer’s hard drive.
Click the “OK” button to move the picture to a new location. Note:
Moving pictures between
folders in the “Folders on Disk” collection will affect their physical location on your hard drive.
• Edit a folder description. Double-click on the title of any folder to open the Folder
Properties box. Enter the new description. You can also modify the folder’s date, place
taken, or caption. Any descriptive information you add will be searchable in Picasa. Click
the “OK” button. Changing the name of a folder in Picasa will change the name of the
actual folder on your computer’s hard drive.
• Delete a picture from a folder. Select a picture, then go to “File” > “Delete,” or just hit the
Delete key on your keyboard. Picasa will remind you that you’re about to send that file to
your computer’s recycle bin. Click the “OK” button to remove the picture.
Labels Collection
This collection contains labels that you create in Picasa. Labels are used to group and
organize pictures based on your own criteria and identified by a simple word or title. For
example, you can create a label called “Flowers” to group all of your pictures of flowers, or
you might create a label like “Trip to The Grand Canyon” to arrange all of your latest vacation
pictures. Unlike the “Folders on Disk” collection, which matches exactly the folder locations
on your computer, labels do not correspond to physical folders on your hard drive. If you delete
or move pictures inside the labels collection, the original files stay safe in their original
locations on your hard drive. You can even add the same image to multiple labels without
creating multiple copies of the same image. Edits you make to a picture will also be applied to
every instance of the image, including the original.
• Create a new label. First select one or more pictures (you cannot create an empty label).
Select “File” > “New Label” to create a new label in Picasa containing the selected
picture(s). You can do the same thing by choosing a picture, clicking the “Label” button and
selecting “New Label” on the popup list.
• Add an existing label to a picture. The same picture can be assigned many labels in
Picasa. Select a picture, click the “Label” button, and select an existing label from the list.
• Change a label description. Double-click on the title of any label to open the “Label
Properties” box. Enter a new description for the label. You can also modify the label’s date,
place taken, or caption. Any descriptive information you add will be searchable in Picasa.
When you’re done, click the “OK” button.
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