I keep all my photos on a network drive, so I don’t need Picasa to waste time monitoring the “My Pictures” folder, nor the rest of my computer. How do I change this setting?

Picasa’s Folder Manager can be used to configure which locations are monitored. This is probably the answer you are looking for if you were checking under Tools → Options and found nothing.

  1. Click on Tools.
  2. Click on Folder Manager….
  3. For each of the folders you do not wish to monitor (e.g. Desktop, My Photos, etc…):
    • Click on the folder.
    • Select “Remove from Picasa” from the right.
    • Repeat for each folder.
  4. Click on the network drive in which your photos are kept. If they are in a specific folder on that drive, browse to it by expanding the folder tree.
  5. Select “Scan Always” from the right.
  6. Click OK.
Configuring the Picasa Folder Manager

Picasa will now only monitor the network drive/folders that you chose. This process also works with any other drive, such as an external firewire/usb drive, or a supplementary hard drive.