6 May 2013

Losing Blog Pictures

Hi everyone,
I haven't blogged in ages and just when I wanted to start again the worst possible thing happened: All my blog pictures vanished. And it was all my fault.
That alone is a very scary thing. But to make matters worse, there is no easy way to get them back.
I'm writing this blog post so that anyone out there reading this does not make the same mistake I did. I could hide away, too ashamed to write this because everyone probably knows better than I do but I feel like I should warn you because it could happen to anyone.
I was editing my blogger profile when this little Google+ option appeared. I honestly didn't know better (first mistake) and thought I had to create an account in order to edit my profile. I know that makes no sense but I honestly didn't know.
So I made the Google+ account and was really shocked to see all these photos that were mine and I thought they'd been taken from my laptop (again, classic sign that I was not thinking clearly). There were around 900 photos in the album and the top ones and only ones I actually looked at were all headers that I had made. Maybe if I'd scrolled way down I would have realised what was happening. 
I was annoyed that Google+ had access to all of these photos so I deleted the album. Big mistake. This caused all my blog photos to be deleted because what I didn't know was that all my blog photos were automatically saved to a Picasa account which was linked to Google+. Hence by deleting the album, all my blog pictures were gone.
The only way to get them back? Re-upload every single photo. No magic button to restore the album, no fancy technological solution. Just good old hard work.
To me this was soul-crushing because even though I do take breaks in between blogging, I had put a lot of work into it. I actually cried.
I started this blog as a way of distracting myself from all the bad stuff going on in my life and to have all of that just disappear, just because I deleted an album that I thought was completely unrelated to it, was cruel. 
So I'm writing this blog post with the hopes that this won't happen to other people who, like me, were not aware of any of this.
I found this blog that explained the situation a lot better than I have so I'll link it here for you all to read.
To be honest, I'm not sure if I will continue blogging now. I feel so deflated by all of this, I'm not sure I can bare re-uploading all of the photos and who wants a practically empty blog? I've started putting a few back but even those few posts drained me, probably because the realisation of my stupid mistake hit like a giant lorry.
Anyway, I hope this helps at least one person and prevents them from doing what I've done. Or at least clears up the fact that you can't get the photos back (which is really bad news and I'm very sorry to have to give it to you).
I should be looking at the bright side, it could be worse: blogging could be my main job or my blog could have been a lot bigger with a lot more photos. There's always a positive somewhere. In order to cheer up, here's a picture of my dog:
Onwards and upwards!
Minnie xx