What's new
Van's Air Force

Don't miss anything! Register now for full access to the definitive RV support community.

How to insert photo's from Google Photo's?

KazooRV-9A

Well Known Member
Patron
I'm having trouble getting the URL and inserting photo's from Google photo's.

It seems like it was working awhile back, and now I can't get it to work on the forums here.

Can anyone comment on what I may be doing wrong? Or has Google Photo's changed in some way? Frustrating...

Thank you,

Andy C.
 
I'm having trouble getting the URL and inserting photo's from Google photo's.

It seems like it was working awhile back, and now I can't get it to work on the forums here.

Can anyone comment on what I may be doing wrong? Or has Google Photo's changed in some way? Frustrating...

Thank you,

Andy C.
I use Google photos. Choose the image from an album you want to link to, then right click on photo, choose Copy Image Location. Then follow DR's embeddding pics into post. Paste/insert url image location address and that's it.

n0uEz7gbfDk8I-770NzGls_saA8toHGqwsOuG7MmouZ_zspzNknEmUPj_lh_jvSheNjsEcHSmP6wzoZZfibBjBFZPBQlrI5385EQgxNsYbyyCy5rvWjWRB3XifzFR5jkJWZiyvSR5ChytqzT482-kHlfShNtDLMvce8EPsPa-rmru7u5WnHPPV5nbvldR3CLhVchh71GED8xfe7tBMIiDfXWZMIxUwIkKWv31Ndqz0rzBcbVMLZFT_tUMn5rZd5jvFd7hVoODRrCEQ-2piar5PEgQ2-hErtNnp6MMOEqpPfiw3wBzgCk8tEcsk1kAeXHLfT2OpPAmOEyAB2s2ojd7tPN5eDbKjAfU_xfunoMMTyTcpWeEb3xO6g13kDiYHsrHSqb9PYvVeLtavlBaAJlwlF7LX6o5jEGdbf9c22KnR7fnZ_VQ1o7Q5WSckXufjjNF0r2DMKlPYpe_GVOUKz8zKgUEin4oJ2KRlaVx5U-ZlH1nAZm1hIW016KLa1T51hDcHSdbJx_Zuz6IUU7dCsXpiVtvp89QbMRcYr5r3f5iQK80yn5ayc2xyNeV7mkxDomipCNMYdredez28nvmhqqCp8qIQQqPKqxvpmhIMSD3Q=w898-h290-no
 
I use Google photos. Choose the image from an album you want to link to, then right click on photo, choose Copy Image Location. Then follow DR's embeddding pics into post. Paste/insert url image location address and that's it.

n0uEz7gbfDk8I-770NzGls_saA8toHGqwsOuG7MmouZ_zspzNknEmUPj_lh_jvSheNjsEcHSmP6wzoZZfibBjBFZPBQlrI5385EQgxNsYbyyCy5rvWjWRB3XifzFR5jkJWZiyvSR5ChytqzT482-kHlfShNtDLMvce8EPsPa-rmru7u5WnHPPV5nbvldR3CLhVchh71GED8xfe7tBMIiDfXWZMIxUwIkKWv31Ndqz0rzBcbVMLZFT_tUMn5rZd5jvFd7hVoODRrCEQ-2piar5PEgQ2-hErtNnp6MMOEqpPfiw3wBzgCk8tEcsk1kAeXHLfT2OpPAmOEyAB2s2ojd7tPN5eDbKjAfU_xfunoMMTyTcpWeEb3xO6g13kDiYHsrHSqb9PYvVeLtavlBaAJlwlF7LX6o5jEGdbf9c22KnR7fnZ_VQ1o7Q5WSckXufjjNF0r2DMKlPYpe_GVOUKz8zKgUEin4oJ2KRlaVx5U-ZlH1nAZm1hIW016KLa1T51hDcHSdbJx_Zuz6IUU7dCsXpiVtvp89QbMRcYr5r3f5iQK80yn5ayc2xyNeV7mkxDomipCNMYdredez28nvmhqqCp8qIQQqPKqxvpmhIMSD3Q=w898-h290-no

This is how it works for me also.

One item that may or may not be a factor-------I use Firefox on my PC.
 
I have also been doing it the same way, and it worked until yesterday for me. Some see them, some don't. Wonder what changed...

Chris
 
Well, I?ve done this but when I ?Preview? the post, the picture doesn?t show. Is it possible that the picture will show, once I fully submit the post? It used to show when I previewed it.
 
I ain't no computer genius, but I've noticed a lot of times (in other applications), that pictures show in Google chrome, but not Firefox.:confused:
 
Here is what seems to work in Chrome. I'd think it should work in any browser, but I can't say for sure.

Steps 3 and 4 must be followed carefully, and I don't believe anyone has suggested this exact sequence here before. Something changed about the way Google presents the urls perhaps a year or two ago, which led me to explore this further.

1. The pictures have to be in an album which is set as shared. I've noticed that there might be a short time delay between moving an image into a shared folder and when it works on these forums.
2. Open the shared album containing the image
3. Right click on the image of interest, and select "Open Link in New Tab".
4. Go to new tab, and again right click on the picture, and select "Copy Image Address". Do not copy the url from the browser tab's url box!
5. Paste this copied url in the "Please enter the URL of your image:" popup which pops up when you click the little icon others have noted.

Regarding sizing, something like this will be at the end of the text pasted:
=w640-h480-no

You can delete the height (the h480 in this example), and the minus sign before it, while simply changing the 640 to 320 as in this example:

=w320-no

This is for resizing the image to a more screen friendly width.
 
If you are using the "copy image address" or opening the image in a new tab and getting the URL for the photo....please take note.

The URL that you are grabbing is to Google CDN's (Content Delivery Network), where you photo is stored.....temporarily.

CDN's are not meant to be a primary, longterm storage for a URL. In particular, Google also has permissions on their photos so if you don't share or set the permissions to public the photo it will not show regardless of where its stored in their CDN.

Another thing to be cognizant of with their CDN, the URL you get is VERY region specific. It will likely not show up for people outside of your region, and they will end up with the "grey circle / stop / no permissions" icon when they view your photo.

Google can and will occasionally refresh and flush their CDN's which means the link you captured may last a year, decade, or it may last only a few hours.

There's just too many issues to be had when trying to use Google Photos to hotlink to a photo. There are services that provide hotlink-able, and permanent URLs to photos. I have been using www.imgur.com for close to seven years now with no issues, and none of my URLS from seven years ago have expired or gone missing. It's also a free service.
 
Interesting stuff about Google?s photos. Can you see the images in my first post in this 9 yr old thread?
http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=41048

Yeah, but take a look at that photo' URL:

Code:
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_Tmi66Ai4XWs/Sb3FMMVFcbI/AAAAAAAAAEE/oExuwe1cqVs/s800/006.JPG

The domain is ggpht.com which, if I had to guess is back before when Google took over Picasaweb. Interestingly enough, Picasaweb used to fully support hotlinking to a photo, and actually made it easy to grab a persistent photo URL.

Most of the photos that are disappearing on people, or just don't show up for folks in varying regions have a URL like this:

Code:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/dDHec_0urb0RjE7F8KJ7BbFKqui6uao5rVGvnAJNi0StWtoXWtQ89nYfa9rE2myY9DY0nreGA6rgCRCH6S6wgHLeaP4Hi3_wijD9E6wSYaBGCKtW7nYmlDMfmvbfFBxepiMyIlRmRm0LwVQzXEKo4O1bCK4Qqc0oJVZ0rOieQwW22LoR3YZ1DzbEjEbOVob25hlKU-PmiMhCVsGkAV7PFQVxWc200bKXbauumNmH-pJew_5xlwDh2fErIuIcx3dqB1kbTYBeXXClcsO95suhqZKCT5rZwH1Y-gr46U_CD8uERzt3URrUUeXsWfG8uNRiSqLzSoR6fE6bbfZ9cCQzuHzNAyTrHVNj17PekIQSbO7zXm8tt4f2KggF-LBcxqRbNnWrzx90rrxZjfeJwHIIyuuLB_7_tiDrQU5kjF_gJMOTTBPyGOVtZPxdAqkqK7rNamk0tvV2X2RPtTLsuKfzuq7fT4eBFaEYCUmz2LCqrCbnn9wsYoO-CltdN17LAbjKuMFrem98r24eJPLYC8tQRgC2tLuLcmTtVLUGaJ91E73JWoz2A5DONRkPtSRwGHs4v03Bj0vya43bdtUWhB0qpseQqh_Ia-WHjXRiDPNu=w2542-h1908-no

Where the domain is from googleusercontent.com

It makes me REALLY miss the old Picasaweb :-( It was so much easier / stable than the new Google photos / Drive junk of today.
 
Yeah, but take a look at that photo' URL:

Code:
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_Tmi66Ai4XWs/Sb3FMMVFcbI/AAAAAAAAAEE/oExuwe1cqVs/s800/006.JPG

The domain is ggpht.com which, if I had to guess is back before when Google took over Picasaweb. Interestingly enough, Picasaweb used to fully support hotlinking to a photo, and actually made it easy to grab a persistent photo URL.

GGPHT = GooGlePHoTos :) it's the newer stuff.

You can also find articles on what each part of the URL means, e.g. s800 means "size 800 pixels". I know some of our URLs are time sensitive, but never took the time to understand which.

afaik hot linking is a big problem for abuse - it'd probably be fine for this use, but you can imagine people running entire porn sites out of their "personal pictures" without paying a dime for proper image hosting, which I understand is why many services limit it.
 
What a wealth of talent this group has - thanks Lynn and Rodrigo.

If one simply grabs the url from the browser of a photo today, it starts with:

"https://photos.google.com/share/AF1Q", and I do not think that works. For example, one of those same photos from the 9 year old thread, when grabbed today and inserted using the image icon, gives:

AF1QipNFN7hDWm8G1GdCrls788YLk3C1avrxGScgtdUR


The forum software doesn't display this on my pc in the "preview post" function (there is no ".jpg" in that link), but if I click the link it does open a new tab of the photo. Are others able to see it when clicked?
 
FWIW, no image hosting site wants you hotlinking photos directly into other sites. Especially sites that host images for free. They host for free so you will come back to their site multiple times and look at your photos, while they display their ads all around them to pay for the site. Eventually, any site that allows direct linking to an image, will change the linking method... Either as their internal file structure is upgraded, or to intentionally block direct linking (when you see a square image that says "linking not supported" or something like that, they're blocking).
 
This is one ugly URL but it did allow me to post a picture of my favorite tool. (I added a space after https so it wouldn't display the image.)

https ://lh3.googleusercontent.com/xPVHEhR8B358Y1_BszDpn0QNwk6ryLWXq2TTNGteenb_IIPqC_zZZA5QCjj-tmVeATZRNUBel88-aHtSC6a7dmn-vLZd6W8b4PnQh1cRoKDAfrIjKY7hW21-xZogcIt-4oY7P-xa9up6DNRWbc119ekKpt0ayDpWVnJVGCg2d26eixKgBGjLsxHX-eszF5IKYYPyaYf3Zf-frpFFVAJGXhZn4uhD-9V_iRaQkr5-ja2U2k47cKsgiZ-Q9J5tNhD5IHiASHTN6MK9sGZw-GUVty-nqidQjmqbEDy5AYCUqRtJkJCs7Envh6_Hq6PbMFUyJ3z-l88oeZUGP-_E67RmqMOY81v_K1rvbS9VqN8WvmryFH0J_QQbEKJtMj_siZujWM3p4NBG5e1PXYhdwH8Knl7eQquJqC7HgqR_Fy-yT5Nj2ta4F2V6B4DM7zWfPsuuRS-G_fhFGTaiggC3f_E2a5Pw1N58lSxr7Y6dskw7WbECi-MIXxsS0aEC5qELoAu_F3-21XBKbpxd7OYLSXx89XKcMURZCN4ePqfQK2d29fF-r0btML2Qn0IQuciVRZA2TUbO8OltQIXTYa6AiobcC5mZWTb3tQ-A26_tHPU=w1080-h582-no

xPVHEhR8B358Y1_BszDpn0QNwk6ryLWXq2TTNGteenb_IIPqC_zZZA5QCjj-tmVeATZRNUBel88-aHtSC6a7dmn-vLZd6W8b4PnQh1cRoKDAfrIjKY7hW21-xZogcIt-4oY7P-xa9up6DNRWbc119ekKpt0ayDpWVnJVGCg2d26eixKgBGjLsxHX-eszF5IKYYPyaYf3Zf-frpFFVAJGXhZn4uhD-9V_iRaQkr5-ja2U2k47cKsgiZ-Q9J5tNhD5IHiASHTN6MK9sGZw-GUVty-nqidQjmqbEDy5AYCUqRtJkJCs7Envh6_Hq6PbMFUyJ3z-l88oeZUGP-_E67RmqMOY81v_K1rvbS9VqN8WvmryFH0J_QQbEKJtMj_siZujWM3p4NBG5e1PXYhdwH8Knl7eQquJqC7HgqR_Fy-yT5Nj2ta4F2V6B4DM7zWfPsuuRS-G_fhFGTaiggC3f_E2a5Pw1N58lSxr7Y6dskw7WbECi-MIXxsS0aEC5qELoAu_F3-21XBKbpxd7OYLSXx89XKcMURZCN4ePqfQK2d29fF-r0btML2Qn0IQuciVRZA2TUbO8OltQIXTYa6AiobcC5mZWTb3tQ-A26_tHPU=w1080-h582-no
 
Last edited:
So I signed up on IMGUR and uploaded some pictures there.
When I copied the picture from their service and pasted it into Van's forum, it will embed a link, but I wanted the picture to actually show on the post.

What do I do to have the picture actually show, vs. a link to it?
 
Back
Top