How to post iPhoto images to Blogger

Background

I spent a good deal of an evening trying to find a quick and easy way to post from iPhoto to Blogger. I found one pay option involving a utility that used Flickr as a middle man, but that costs about $26 USD to register.

I contemplated using Applescript and the Blogger API for the task. I was hunting up the relevant API and Applescript documentation when I had a thought. I'd already set up Blogger Mobile so it would post photos I sent from my cell phone and my gmail account. The cell phone posting I used all the time, but the gmail posting, almost never.

I'd stumbled across iPhoto2Gmail in my hunt. This utility allows you to e-mail photos through your gmail account directly from iPhoto. It even lets you resize them on the fly.

Within a few minutes, I was happily posting photos to Blogger from iPhoto without a care in the world.

Of course, iPhoto's ability to share messages via e-mail gives you even more flexibility by letting you bypass Gmail completely and use any Pop account you wish.

While Blogger has a Mail-to-Blogger feature, you HAVE to use Blogger Mobile to do post photos as "Mail-to-Blogger does not support images or other attachments."

The Method
It will take five to ten minutes to set this up.

1. You need to create a Blogger account.


2. You need to create a Blogger Mobile account. This is a simple matter of sending an e-mail or SMS message to go@blogger.com


3. You need to claim your Mobile Blogger Account. When you create the account, you'll receive an e-mail or SMS message from Blogger Mobile containing a token. Go to go.blogger.com and log in with the token sent by Blogger.


4. Next, you need to merge the Blogger Mobile Blog with your regular Blog. You'll receive directions on how to do this once you "claim" your Mobile Blog. After you claim the Blog, you'll see a list of "Mobile Devices" in your Blogger Dashboard


5. You're almost done. If the e-mail account you used to create the Mobile Blog is set up in the Mac Mail application, then you can start posting your photos to Blogger by simply highlighting them, clicking on the Share menu and selecting "Email". Follow the prompts and send the e-mail to go@blogger.com


6. If you want to use Gmail, download and install iPhoto2Gmail Once this is configured and installed, you will post to Blogger by highlighting the photos in iPhoto, and selecting the File menu, selecting Export and going to the iphoto2gmail tab. The tab name may be truncated.


7. The one down side to using iphoto2gmail is that it will append the following text to the bottom of each post:
   Email Sent using iPhoto2Gmail http://notoptimal.net

With either method (POP or Gmail) you'll still have sent messages containing the resized photos in Gmail or the Mac Mail application. The Mac Mail application can be configured to purge e-mail from the sent messages folder, which may be a valid option if you don't use Mac Mail for anything else.

That's the long and the short of it. A quick, free, easy way to get iPhoto top post directly to Blogger.