I’m setting up my new Samsung Galaxy Note II LTE and came across an annoying problem when synchronising my Google account with the phone. At first I thought all the photos and videos that had been uploaded through the automatic feature of the Google+ app were downloaded onto my new phone. It was a bit messy with a new album created for every day’s photos or video, but I thought I could fix that later. I was quite happy that I didn’t have to transfer all my photos and thought I’d come back to it later today.

While I was using the phone I realised that the albums are actually Picasa albums, with the photos and video downloaded for each access. Time to get rid of them!

Unfortunately, while you can easily create an album the only way I can see to delete an album is to remove all of its contents. Given the large number of Picasa albums that would have been a very tedious task. After a quick google I found a solution that worked for me.

Go into your Google account settings and uncheck the option to “Sync Picasa Web Albums.” Next go into your Application settings and find the “Gallery” application. Click “Clear data.” Don’t worry, this only removes the thumbnails and associated albums, not the actual files on your phone.

Once you start the “Gallery” application again you will see it’s back to the basic folders that you want.

To get the physical copies of the photos and videos I wanted on my Samsung Galaxy Note II I connected my HTC Desire Z via USB to my computer and backed up the files to my computer. I then connected my Samsung Galaxy Note II to my computer via USB, created a folder in the “Camera” directory, and copied the files into the new folder. The phone picked the new folder up as a an album and everything worked as I had hoped!