Looking for a Picasa replacement? Here's an honest one.

What is the best replacement for Picasa?

As of October 2026, Google no longer offers Picasa for download, and its own successor is Google Photos, a cloud service. The best Picasa replacement depends on what you used Picasa for.

• Faces, free, on your computer: digiKam, a desktop app with facial recognition that's free and open source as of October 2026.
• Your library in the cloud and on your phone: Google Photos.
• Already on a Mac: Apple Photos. As of October 2026, it comes built into macOS.
• Folders on external drives, searchable from your phone, no cloud for your photos: CachePix. It's paid, and it has no facial recognition or photo editing.

What happened to Picasa, and what replaced it

Google retired Picasa to focus on Google Photos. It wound down in stages:

• February 12, 2016. Google announced the retirement.
• March 15, 2016. Google stopped supporting the Picasa desktop app.
• After May 1, 2016. Google began retiring Picasa Web Albums, Picasa's online companion, and pointed users to Google Photos.
• March 26, 2018. In an update to its Picasa announcement, Google said the desktop app no longer works online, so it can't upload, download or sync albums.
• July 19, 2023. Google Album Archive, which had kept Picasa Web Albums content viewable, closed. Google says content that existed only there is no longer available.

The last major version was Picasa 3.9.

What Picasa fans want from a replacement

• Folders, respected. Picasa organized the photos already in folders on your computer.
• No cloud required. According to Google's archived help, uploading to Picasa Web Albums was optional.
• Tags that survive a move. Captions and keywords stored in the files come along to a new computer or drive.
• Simple, and free. Picasa was free software from Google. CachePix isn't, so we'll say that up front.

How CachePix covers it

CachePix is a photo catalog app for Mac and Windows. It catalogs the photos on your drives, then syncs a searchable catalog to free iPhone and Android companion apps, so you can browse your archive with the drives unplugged. Your photos never go to the cloud.

Your folders stay where they are

In Drives & Folders, choose Catalog a Folder… and pick a folder or a drive: internal, external or removable. Cataloging never modifies, moves, renames or deletes your files. CachePix writes metadata only when you edit it, and only the fields you changed, as standard XMP in the file or in a sidecar next to RAW files.

Browse with the drives unplugged

CachePix keeps a 512px thumbnail and an HD preview (2048px by default) of each cataloged JPEG, PNG, WebP and RAW photo on your computer, so the Library works with the drive in a drawer. Identical copies on different drives become one photo with each location listed. Edited or re-saved copies stay separate.

It reads the captions already in your files

CachePix reads keywords, caption, headline, title, city, state, sublocation, creator, event and categories from your files' IPTC and XMP metadata, and people names from the XMP Persons shown field. Picasa let you add tags and captions, and Google said captions are saved into the photo files.

CachePix doesn't read picasa.ini files or Picasa's own database, so anything that lives only there won't show up. Catalog one folder first and search for a caption you remember. Search words combine: "Elena Rome" finds photos that match both.

Your archive on your phone

Picasa was a desktop app. Google's 2015 download page offered Windows and Mac versions and pointed phone users to the Google+ app. CachePix adds phone apps. The catalog syncs one way, from your computer to your phone, over your local network. Pair once by scanning a QR code.

Browse and search your catalog with the drives unplugged and the computer at home. CachePix checks your plan online at least once every 14 days.

In August 2026 we measured a library of 190,566 photos (885.66 GB) in two folders on one external drive, cataloged on a Mac and synced to an iPhone. Thumbnails took 8.03 GB on the phone. HD previews add more for the capture-date window you choose (1 year by default). Here's how much space it uses on your phone.

More on how CachePix works as photo cataloging software.

What Picasa did that CachePix doesn't

Know the gaps before you pay.

• Face grouping. Picasa grouped similar faces into albums and let you name the people in them. CachePix has no facial recognition, face detection or AI tagging.
• Photo editing. Picasa's edits are non-destructive: it puts an edited copy where the photo was and keeps the original in a hidden ".picasaoriginals" folder. CachePix doesn't edit photos.
• Video. According to Google's Picasa help, Picasa plays common video formats such as .mov, .mp4 and .avi, if Windows Media Player or QuickTime on your computer can play them. CachePix doesn't support video.
• Geotags. According to Google's archived help, Picasa had a search filter for photos with geotags applied. CachePix doesn't read GPS data and has no map.
• Camera and date search. According to Google's archived help, Picasa's search covered camera maker and dates, among other fields. CachePix has no camera or date search on the computer. The phone app filters by year.
• Albums. CachePix has no albums on the computer. It has saved searches with a live photo count, and favorites and named collections on the phone.
• A price of zero. Picasa was free. CachePix isn't: see pricing for the plans and the 14-day free trial.

Other Picasa replacements

Three other replacements are worth weighing.

digiKam: free, on your computer, with facial recognition

As of October 2026, digiKam is free, open-source software for Linux, Windows and macOS, licensed under the GNU GPL and developed within the KDE community.

digiKam's facial recognition runs on your computer. It reads and writes Exif, IPTC and XMP metadata, and you choose whether that goes into your image files or into XMP sidecar files. According to digiKam's manual, it can manage photo collections on internal drives, on removable media such as external USB drives, and on network shares.

As of October 2026, digiKam's download page lists no iPhone or Android app. Its manual says the desktop app can share photos with phones on your local network over DLNA.

Google Photos: Google's own successor

Google Photos is built around backing up your photos and videos to your Google Account's cloud storage. Backup can be turned on or off. As of October 2026, it has free apps for Android, iPhone and iPad, and runs in a web browser on a Mac or PC.

As of October 2026, Google Accounts include up to 15 GB of free storage, shared across Google Photos, Gmail and Drive, and Google One's US plans page lists 2 TB at $9.99 a month. Prices vary by country. Moving off Google Photos instead? Read our Google Photos alternative without the cloud.

Apple Photos: built into your Mac

As of October 2026, Apple Photos comes built into macOS. It recognizes people, dogs and cats and groups them in its People & Pets collection, and a name you add is applied to that person's or pet's other photos in your library. Photos for Mac can also keep its library on an external drive.

Weighing more options? Compare photo catalog software side by side.

Can you still download or run Picasa?

Only if it's already installed. Google says existing installs keep working offline, with no further updates. If you don't have Picasa installed, you can't get it from Google. Google's 2015 download page listed Picasa for Windows XP, Vista and 7, and Picasa for Mac on Intel Macs running Mac OS X 10.5 or later. We can't tell you whether it runs on Windows 11 or a current version of macOS. Need a Picasa replacement for Windows 11? According to digiKam's download pages (October 2026), its Windows version needs Windows 10 or later (64-bit).

Missing an external drive in Picasa? According to Google's archived Picasa help (2012), Picasa could manage photos on fixed drives, external drives and some mapped network drives, but an external drive had to be connected before Picasa could manage its photos.

Captions and keywords stored in your files stay in those files when you copy or move them to a new computer or drive. Tidy the folders first if they need it: here's how to organize photos on an external hard drive. CachePix is a catalog, not a backup. It makes your archive findable. It doesn't make a second copy, so keep backing up your drives.

Keep reading

• Compare

  All comparisons

  CachePix next to other catalog apps, sourced and dated.

• Guide

  Organize photos on an external hard drive

  A folder plan that stays searchable.

• Plans

  CachePix pricing

  Monthly, Annual and Lifetime.

Last checked October 6, 2026. Check each vendor's site before you decide.