Fun with Picasa and Hidden Folders

I just found an interesting fact about Picasa . The rather cool thing about Picasa – amongst other bits like the very smooth interface – is that it keeps your original images largely unscathed. When you rotate, resize or remove red eyes, Picasa will either just store what you have done in a file in the folder, or keep a copy of the original image, in case you messed up.

As a means of storage, Picasa stores a file called picasa.ini in each folder you applied changes to. Now, the rather funny bit about that is that it also does that when you want to hide a folder from view – for reasons that are totally your own private matter. Picasa will not show these folders, and you can even protect them with a password. However, it does not encrypt the folder or anything like that, all it does is add a

[Picasa]
P2category=Hidden Folders
[encoding]
utf8=1

to the Picasa.ini file.

This means that if you ever get to a computer with Picasa on it and you want to be the coolest hacker in the world, simply search in Windows (or even better Total Commander) for all Picasa.ini files that contain the text “Hidden” and you found what was not meant to be for prying eyes.

Now all you need is either the figure of Angelina Jolie or the sunglasses of Keanu Reeves and you are the coolest hacker on the block.