More on the Flickr API and FlickrNet
The other day I told you about a little application that I created that would download all of my images from Flickr using the Flickr API. I was using a tool written in .Net called FlickrNet to do this. I developed the tool further to download every size available for each image as well as all of the meta data (tags, description, title, exif tags, map notes, etc.).
I finally got all of my images downloaded. The only problem was, they were all of the public images. I still needed my photos marked as “Friends Only” or “Family Only”. My guess was that it was because I was not authenticated when making the requests.
I looked over the API and didn’t see anything about authentication. I signed up for the development list and posted my question. Today I got my answer that there is undocumented support for this. I simply had to provide the email and password along with the request.
I didn’t develop the FlickrNet classes myself, but it was easy to find the code and add it. I was surprised that my first attempt at fixing the problem worked!
820 {
821 url += “&email=” + Utils.UrlEncode(Email);
822 url += “&password=” + Utils.UrlEncode(Password);
823 }
I watched as the program zipped along and then paused on the images that I hadn’t downloaded before. Boy am I happy! I now have a backup of everything from my flickr account.
The next part of the process is to set the program to run every night to only download photos that I haven’t backed up yet. After that, I need to dress up the user interface to make it pretty and see about distributing it.
Tags: Flickr, Flickr API, API, FlickrNet, C#, Code, Programming, .Net, Application, Backup, Tools, Utility, Download, Images, Photos, Exif, Authentication, Undocumented, Troubleshooting, Happy
June 22nd, 2005 at 1:06 pm
I wont jump for this one. Because most of the stuff which goes online at my Flickr account always has a back-up on my machine anyways. Yes, it would be interesting to download ALL IMAGE SIZES of the photos which go online.
Let me know when does this go for beta testing for users. :+:
June 23rd, 2005 at 4:42 pm
Congradulations. I would like a better way to upload to Flikr. I just had 10 files bomb. I use their uploadr but there has to be a better way.
I have a Maxtor 1 touch so all my pictures are on the hard drive, Maxtor and some are on Flickr.