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Flickr

Michael Muchmore
 & Michael Muchmore Contributor

Our team tests, rates, and reviews more than 1,500 products each year to help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology.

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Longtime PCMag favorite Flickr retains its lead in the field of online photo storage and sharing with whiz-bang image recognition and excellent uploading tools. - Photo Printing
4.5 Outstanding

The Bottom Line

Longtime PCMag favorite Flickr increases its lead among online photo storage and sharing services with whiz-bang image recognition and excellent uploading tools.

Pros & Cons

    • Image recognition automatically categorizes images.
    • 1TB free storage.
    • Preserves full-size images and EXIF data.
    • Attractive interface.
    • Large photo-sharing community.
    • Geo-tagging, people tagging, keyword tagging.
    • Online photo editing.
    • Traffic stats.
    • Ads in free accounts.
    • User has no control over layout of profile page.

Flickr remains the photo social network of record. It's not just a place you can upload, organize, and back up all your smartphone shots as well as high-resolution images from a DSLR, but it's where you can participate in a huge community of professional and amateur photographers. You'll find current photography from the White House, the British Monarchy, and most other major institutions on Flickr. You get a free terabyte of online storage for your photos with Flickr, and whiz-bang technology automatically tags photos based on what's in them—a beach, a bird, or a group of people. Upgrade to a Pro account ($5.99 per month or $49.99 per year), and you get the slick desktop auto-uploader, ad-free viewing, and unlimited storage. With the richest combination photo and social features, along with a large, active community, Flickr is our image-sharing Editors' Choice.

Signing Up and Setting Up

If you have a Yahoo account, you already have a Flickr account. Otherwise you can sign up for the free ad-supported 1TB account. Yahoo now requires you to enter a mobile phone number to create an account, which I find irksome, but it's an attempt by the service to keep out spammers. It also helps prevent others from hijacking your account.

View All 14 Photos in Gallery

The Pro account level (currently discounted to $34.99) also gets you detailed traffic stats for your photos and a 20-percent discount on Adobe's Creative Cloud Photography plan (which includes Photoshop and Lightroom). In addition, it gets you a "PRO" designation next to your name, so that other users take you seriously.

Flickr Uploadr

Final Thoughts

Longtime PCMag favorite Flickr retains its lead in the field of online photo storage and sharing with whiz-bang image recognition and excellent uploading tools. - Photo Printing

Flickr

4.5 Outstanding

Longtime PCMag favorite Flickr increases its lead among online photo storage and sharing services with whiz-bang image recognition and excellent uploading tools.

About Our Expert

Michael Muchmore

Michael Muchmore

Contributor

My Experience

I've been testing PC and mobile software for more than 20 years, focusing on photo and video editing, operating systems, and web browsers. Prior to my current role, I covered software and apps for ExtremeTech and headed up PCMag’s enterprise software team. I’ve attended trade shows for Microsoft, Google, and Apple and written about all of them and their products.

I still get a kick out of seeing what's new in video and photo editing software, and how operating systems change over time. I was privileged to byline the cover story of the last print issue of PC Magazine, the Windows 7 review, and I’ve witnessed every Microsoft misstep and win, up to the latest Windows 11.

I’m an avid bird photographer and traveler—I’ve been to 40 countries, many with great birds! Because I’m also a classical music fan and former performer, I’ve reviewed streaming services that emphasize classical music.

Technology I Use

For everyday work, I use a good-old Dell tower with 16GB of RAM, a 12th-gen Intel Core i7 processor, and an Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti GPU that runs on Windows 11. I pair it with a 4K Lenovo ThinkVision P27u-10 monitor and a Logitech MX Vertical mouse. For offsite work, I use a 2024 Microsoft Surface Laptop with a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite processor. Camera-wise, I moved to mirrorless from a Canon EOS 80D with a Canon 70-300mm IS USM lens. I now have a Canon EOS R7 with a 100-400mm lens, but I miss my DSLR for several reasons.

In order of usage, the software I turn to most frequently is the Edge web browser, Slack, Adobe Creative Cloud, Microsoft 365, Firefox, Brave, and WhatsApp. I use the Windows Phone link app to see everything on my Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra phone, which has excellent telephoto capability.

For fitness monitoring, I have a Fitbit Charge 6 and use an Anker Smart Scale P1. I’m also a streaming fan, so I subscribe to both Amazon Music Unlimited (especially for its Dolby Atmos content) and Qobuz (for its high-res sound quality and classical catalog). I recently added a Vizio 5.1 Soundbar SE, which sounds surprisingly good given its low price. To holler commands instead of using a remote control, I have the Amazon Fire TV Cube in the living room, which lets me verbally tell the TV what I want to watch. It hooks up to an LG B4 OLED TV. I have a Sonos One speaker in my kitchen that also ties in with Alexa, as does the Echo Dot 2 With Clock in my bedroom. For serious listening, I have B&W 601 speakers plugged into a Conrad-Johnson Sonographe amp and preamp, with a Cambridge Audio AXN10 streamer as source. For reading, I also have a Nook GlowLight 3.

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