Problems

For problems with very slow uploads, aborts or incomplete uploads etc. we recommend the following procedure:

In the browser

1. Restart your browser and computer. Very often the problem has already been solved afterwards.

2. Please clear cookies and cache in your browser.

3. Please try uploading in another browser or try a private session. Is this working any better?

   We recommend in this order: Chrome, Firefox, Safari.

Known issues

• If you want to upload a large number of files (over 1000) in the Safari browser, problems may occur. Restarting the browser will help!

• If you want to upload files from a memory card or a cloud-synchronized folder (e.g. Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive), problems may also occur occasionally. In this case, please copy the file(s) to your computer first and start the upload again.

If you have tried all of the above and your upload still doesn't work correctly, please send us an e-mail to hello@picdrop.com with as much information as possible. Thank you!

General Information

Please check the speed of your internet connection. Unfortunately, it is still the case that even the fastest lines (DSL, cable, etc.) have a rapid download, but the upload speed is only a fraction of this speed. You can find out how this works for you in the contract details of your Internet provider or you can just test it. At speedtest.net you can test the speed of your line and send us the results of the test in case of further questions.

If you have the possibility to test another computer or to test your computer via another internet connection, we can also recommend this to detect the error.

1. Please check the settings of your router, your possibly installed firewall, and possibly installed browser extensions. Does it work better after a short deactivation of firewall and extensions? (Attention: don't activate again!) If yes, please check the settings of your firewall in more detail. Uploading via a network cable instead of via slow WLAN is also optimal.

2. Please remember, parallel downloads or streams (music, videos etc.) slow down the speed of your upload extremely!

An alternative?

Have you already looked for another internet connection or just tested it with friends, colleagues or neighbors?

Important info about the Lightroom plugin.
The Lightroom plugin from picdrop is automatically activated for all accounts created before June 2022. If your account was created after June 2022, you will not find the plugin in your account settings.
But don't worry: if you can't do without the Lightroom plugin for your work, please email us at hello@picdrop.com and we'll be happy to help.

Current restriction November 2023:

with the update to Lightroom version 13, the export/upload status is no longer displayed with reliable information. However, the upload to picdrop works in the background. Adobe needs to make further improvements here.

List of error messages

Do you see get the error message

"An internal error has occurred: ?:0: attempt to call field 'AgNetIO' (a nil value)"

this is probably because you still have the old macOS Mojave operating system installed on your computer, but you are using a current version of Lightroom.

The Lightroom plugin can only be used on macOS Mojave up to Lightroom version 10.2. Please update your computer to a newer operating system or downgrade to Lightroom 10.2 or older.

Do you see one of the following error messages?

“Unable to upload because Lightroom cannot ascertain if the target destination exists.”

or

“The specified FTP preset is incomplete and cannot be used.”

In most cases these messages are caused by incorrect login credentials or FTP settings. To eliminate these errors please follow this checklist step by step. Even if some of the steps seem trivial or funny to you.

1. Make sure that you really entered ftp.picdrop.com as the server and not just picdrop.com.

2. Please make sure there is no space at the beginning or at the end of ftp.picdrop.com

3. Make sure you have entered your username correctly. You can find the username here.

4. When exporting files from Lightroom, make sure you selected the preset "PicDrop" in the "Target Server" section (at the bottom). Please read our installation instructions very, very carefully, as such important details can be quickly overlooked.

5. Please change your password in your picdrop account settings and then adjust the FTP settings in Lightroom. (Do not forget to save!) This option prevents typing and copying errors.

6. Check if you use unusual special characters like "&" or similar in the gallery name. If so, please try it without this sign.

7. Try to switch your connection from FTP (port 21) to SFTP (port 22), or vice versa if you already use SFTP. Please do not forget to save the settings.

8. Make sure you are not using any form of firewall or programs such as "Little Snitch" that block your connection. Disable these for testing purposes to see if it works without them.

9. Please test if another network / wifi or a hotspot through your mobile phone is solving the problem, so you can be sure that it is not your network that is blocking the upload.

Still not working?

In this case, it is very likely that your ISP has blocked the FTP Port. This is occasionally the case in public WLANs, in hotels and holiday homes, at airports etc... Some ISPs may also block FTP connections to prevent the misuse of "their" Internet connection, but unfortunately also block serious services such as your upload. Please try SFTP and port 22 (see point 7).

An alternative?

Have you already looked for another internet connection or just tested it with friends, colleagues or neighbors?

We also recommend that you upload via your browser. This cannot be blocked and thanks to our convenient drag & drop upload this should be very easy for you.

If none of this works, just write us at hello@picdrop.com and we'll see how we can help you.

There can be several reasons for this error:

1. Disabled cookies for you or your clients:

Make sure that cookies are activated in your browser and that your clients have also activated cookies for picdrop. Access to password-protected areas is not possible without cookies. Alternatively, deactivate the password to allow your client access to the gallery.

2. Completely outdated browsers:

Some clients, especially in large corporations, unfortunately still use completely outdated browsers. The reason for this is usually strict security regulations from the IT department. They like to use "secure" old browsers instead of laboriously converting all computers in a company to newer, modern browsers. We try hard to get picdrop to work on ancient browsers, but we can't guarantee it on browsers that are ten years old. If your client might have this problem, simply ask him to use another browser.

3. Very sharp security settings:

Large companies and corporations, especially in the banking, aviation and pharmaceutical sectors, extremely protect their employees' PCs from external dangers such as viruses or unknown websites with potential traps. This often means that only a handful of websites can be accessed. All other pages, whether news, football or image transfer pages, i.e. picdrop, will then remain blocked or only function incompletely. Unfortunately, we have no influence on this. If your company or your client's company is affected, a discreet hint to the IT department will help to put picdrop on the "Whitelist".

There can be several reasons for this. The most common error is that JPG compression was used instead of ZIP compression when saving the TIFF. This kind of compression is not 100% compatible with many image processing programs and also with picdrop. We therefore recommend saving with ZIP compression. This method also has the advantage that, unlike JPG compression, it does not reduce the quality of your image data, but still effectively reduces the file size.

Within a gallery, picdrop automatically scans your images for repetitive behavior in the file names. These name parts, which are always the same from file to file, are then hidden in the image overview. This ensures that only the relevant file numbers are displayed. Your gallery will be clearer and communication with your clients will be easier. Of course, the complete file name is always displayed in the large image view.

If you don't like the automatic file shortcut, you can simply disable it in your account settings.

Do you see too many results when using picdrop’s filter texts? Or do you get no results at all? There are several reasons why this might happen – and these are the solutions:

Spaces in filenames

Lightroom, Windows Explorer, Apples Finder, etc. cannot filter out files that contain spaces. Before uploading, you should make sure that your file names consist only of letters, numbers, and underscores or hyphens.

Files renamed before uploading to picdrop

Basically, the files on your hard disk must have the same file name as the files in your picdrop Gallery and the selection you want to filter out locally. So you should make sure that e.g. Lightroom does not rename the files when uploading.

No leading zeros in filename

If additional images are filtered out instead of your selection, this is often due to missing "fill zeros" in your file names. From the beginning, for example, if you filter to "File-2," Lightroom and Co will display all files that contain the "File-2" section in their names. Unfortunately, this section is also found in other file names such as "File-24". The result, both files (or even much, much more...) are displayed.

To solve this problem permanently, we recommend naming files from the memory card to the hard disk so that the trigger number always has at least 4 digits at the end of the file. Shorter digits before should always be filled with zeros. So "File-2" would become "File-0002" and the number is always and everywhere completely unique, even when filtering in Lightroom. For example, using this method, the "File-0002" file can no longer be part of the "File-0024" file name, as it was before.

This procedure helps you in many other programs besides Lightroom, including picdrop.

Exceeding the character limit in Explorer or Finder

The filter text in the Explorer can contain a maximum of 259 characters. The filter text in the Finder is limited to 2048 characters or 99 files.

Capture One

Capture One offers multiple ways to search for files. Please use the function in the menu Select > Select by > Filename List ...

Here is a detailed description of how to use this function: How do I filter color-coded images in Lightroom, Capture One, Photo Mechanic, Finder and Explorer?

Photo Mechanic

Photo Mechanic offers two different search tools. Please use the search via "Edit & Find..." in the menu to filter your selection. Here you will find the required settings for Photo Mechanic's search window.

If you see an error message when sending your gallery mails from picdrop, it may be that you have hit one of our spam protection mail limits.

A brief explanation:

We've set up mail-limits for sending emails via picdrop to prevent the emails from ending up in your customers' spam folders. This is because sending masses of emails can quickly lead to the email program marking the picdrop emails as spam and all following emails also end up in the spam folder. We and you certainly want to avoid this as much as possible.

However, if you reach one of these limits, you are welcome to contact us at any time and we will temporarily increase the limits for you. Just send a short email to hello@picdrop.com.

You accidentally deleted a whole gallery in your picdrop account?

Don't panic!

Sometimes there is a chance that you are able to recover them, as we keep deleted galleries for you for a short period of time in the trash bin of your account. 

The only condition for you to be able to restore the gallery is that you did not delete it too long ago and you have not created a new gallery with the same name in your account in the meantime.

Just click on the trash bin symbol on the bottom of your gallery list in your dashboard and from there you can restore any of the listed galleries according to your wishes.

Please note that you may only restore complete galleries and not individual files.

In case of recovery, your gallery will be restored with all color flags, comments and selections.