Flickr Mass Uploader

As its name implies, Flickr Mass Uploader is a software utility designed for uploading photos to Flickr in batch mode. Built in Java, it can run on all the major platforms, including Windows, Mac OS and Linux.

It is advisable you run Flickr Mass Uploader with administrator privileges from the start or else it might not be able to perform the backup. To do so, one option is to run a console window with administrator rights, navigate to the location of Flickr Mass Uploader, and load the JAR file using the "java -jar <JAR file>" command.

To use Flickr Mass Uploader, you first need to connect it to your Flickr account by providing an API key and a shared secret key. These keys are automatically generated by Flickr. To get your own keys, login to your account and navigate to the https://www.flickr.com/services/apps/create/ page.

Once you filled in the mandatory keys, you have to select the directory where the photos you want to backup are stored. Pressing the 'Save' button at this point will make the application remember your settings.

Although you can use Flickr Mass Uploader to just backup photos to your Flickr account, there are also options to perform data synchronization.

The simple sync deletes online photos that are no longer located in the local directory so you must be careful, as you might risk data loss. However, photosets are not erased. New photos in the target folder are uploaded to Flickr.

The full sync option works pretty much the same as the simple ones, the only difference being that photosets that are not found on the local PC are deleted from Flickr as well.

Flickr Mass Uploader can do its job as promised, uploading photos in a local folder to your Flickr account, in the 'Camera Roll' section. No functionality issues were found during our tests, but the application could use a makeover, given that its interface is quite rudimentary. Moreover, a few more confirmation messages to avoid data loss when using synchronization wouldn't hurt.