Flickr deletes 5 years worth of photos

February 2, 2011 @ 8:11AM

Flickr deletes 5 years worth of photos

Stupid accident causes 4,000 photos, thousands of comments, and hundreds of links to vanish - they "can not be restored".

By Haje Jan Kamps

I wouldn't be best pleased if Flickr nuked my account out of orbit...

Imagine, for a second, that you have a Flickr account. Then, imagine you've posted more than 4,000 photos to it, and that Flickr deletes it by accident.

Next, imagine that you contact Flickr to find out what the hell is going on, only to be told that 'whoops, yeah, we did that by accident. We'll re-instate your account, but your photos are gone'.

That's what happened to Mirco Wilhelm, in an absolutely cruel mix-up. He had, in fact, been in touch with Flickr to report another user who had been posting photos that were infringing on copyright - and he included his own Flickr name in the E-mail as well.

A stupid mistake

"I did report on a user account only containing obviously stolen material", says Mirco.

Flickr, in their haste to delete the offending material, managed to delete the wrong user account - a move that is non-revertible, apparently.

Mirco's plaster on the wound? 4 years of free Flickr Pro.

"Since Flickr had deleted the account", Mirco writes, "they cannot reactivate anything more that the account itself, leaving me with an empty shell of what I did during the last 5 years. This would be acceptable, if I had a free account." - but he didn't - he's a paying customer.

I'm not being funny, but Flickr don't have to pull many stunts like this before I stop recommending them on my blogs, in my books, and to all my friends and family. Absolutely appalling. Sort your crap out.

Restored after all

Update: Yahoo just tweeted that Flickr "restored a mistakenly deleted member’s account. We regret the error, reloaded all photos, and gave 25 years free Flickr Pro".

I guess the media shitstorm forced them to do what they said couldn't be done... I just hope they address their routines after all this...

Backing up your Flickr photos

If this story has scared you sufficiently, perhaps it's time to download FlickrEdit, a tool that enables you to take a back-up of all your Flickr photos, at least. It woudn't stop you from losing all your comments etc, but it's better than nothing...

On that note, when did you last take a back-up of your photos? Here's some more about why and how.

Read Mirco's full account on his blog (via PetaPixel)

Do you enjoy a smattering of random photography links? Well, squire, I welcome thee to join me on Twitter - Follow @Photocritic

Comments

Eric Reichbaum

Pixiq Expert

1 year ago

Shame on flickr for making that mistake but Come on, if that guy was really using flickr as his only storage of 5 years of photos? That's his own stupidity. I can't feel sorry for him. If your photos mean a lot to you, you should have them backed up on at LEAST 2 hard drives, minimum!

wade courtney

1 year ago

Why on earth would anyone use flickr as their only backup. where did his original files go, did he delete them from his computer? Even if they nuked my account today, I still have all of my files stored locally in two locations.

It's just not smart housekeeping to not have your files in at least two places.

Dave Fitch

1 year ago

If either of you actually bothered to find out what happened you'd know two things: a] this isn't the first time Flickr have done this - check their forums, there are complaints about this sort of thing going back three or four years or more, and b] he's not lost any of his pictures, he's got them backed up.

Eric Reichbaum

Pixiq Expert

1 year ago

If thats the case, it's definitely not that big of a deal. Flickr is a wonderful dumping ground for all of my photos that I want others to see (as long as they're not potential clients). It's amateur. It's an incredible forum to learn from others and to have discussions, but I would never rely on links or anything that mattered to a website that charges me $2 a month to be a "pro". If you're concerned that you might lose all of those precious comments like "wow this photo is great" and "she's hot" then don't use flickr, shell out cash for your own website.