Products · Product
Flickr
Raised as a usability problem by 116 people on Hacker News over 19 years (2008–2026), in 69 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
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Every issue, all time, most people first
Thumbnails and photo pages take minutes to loadUnreviewed
20082026- App is slow and clunky, and images take forever to load2021-12-29
- Thumbnails and photo pages take minutes to load, making browsing painfully slow2015-09-28
- Photos take a long time to load, so users keep waiting2015-05-08
Search returns irrelevant results, so specific photos are hard to findUnreviewed
20082026- Search returns many photos from one photographer, forcing users to scroll past irrelevant results2017-04-26
- Cannot search for images by keyword, so finding one means browsing millions2013-12-14
- Search is horrible, hard to find photos or content2012-07-17
Locked out of account and data after changing email, no recoveryUnreviewed
20082026- Password reset emails sent but the account was refused reset from that address2019-12-20
- Couldn't reset login because the secondary email on file was unknown2018-04-21
- Locked out of account and data with no way to recover access after changing email2017-04-26
Ads interspersed between photos make browsing clutteredUnreviewed
20082026- Ads are interspersed between photos so browsing feels cluttered and annoying2018-04-21
- Ads are inserted so they look exactly like photos, making them hard to tell apart2016-03-12
- Extensive ads and a poor layout make the site hard to use2013-05-21
Hundreds of duplicate photos must be deleted one by oneUnreviewed
20082026- No way to mass-delete all photos while keeping the account2024-09-21
- No batch delete option, so cleaning up many auto-uploaded photos took days2018-04-20
- Must delete hundreds of duplicate photos one by one with no bulk option2011-08-12
Next and previous arrows trigger full page reloadsUnreviewed
20082026- Going back from a photo loses place in the gallery, forcing re-scrolling2013-06-17
- Next and previous arrows trigger full page reloads, making photo browsing feel clunky2013-05-23
- Full page reload between every image makes casual browsing painful2011-03-15
Photos display at a fixed size too small for modern monitorsUnreviewed
20082026- No obvious way to scale slideshow photos to the screen size2013-05-23
- Photos display in a fixed size too small for modern monitors2010-05-21
- Photos display too small, forcing users to click through or use scripts2010-02-10
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Pruning photos to favorites erased everyone else's favorite tags, a hidden destructive effect2026-05-25
- Opening the app repeatedly tries to upload the entire camera roll2026-04-26
- Shared portfolio links open with pop-ups for viewers without accounts2026-04-26
- Opening image files directly redirects to a page hiding the image behind an invisible layer2026-02-24
- The interface is described as horrible, with no specific problem given2026-02-24
- No way to mass-delete all photos while keeping the account2024-09-21
- Can't tell where to scan next or track where they've already looked in the interleaved masonry grid2024-04-23
- Couldn't find a way to view only private photos to delete them2024-03-04
- Site got very slow and crappy to use for the commenter2023-09-14
- Can't find their private photos in the interface, so gave up2023-07-08
- Page dims and locks scrolling, leaving the article unreadable without reader mode2022-12-13
- Page won't scroll in mobile Safari, forcing reader mode to read it2022-12-13
- Interface feels unacceptably slow on a DSL connection due to bloat2021-12-29
- Commenter calls Flickr's new UI shitty, though they still prefer it to other sites2021-12-29
- Hard to find most-liked photos; sorting menu is almost hidden2021-12-29
- App is slow and clunky, and images take forever to load2021-12-29
- Redesigned site became unusable after Marissa Mayer's UX overhaul2021-12-29
- Cookie dialog lists over 90 advertising companies and hundreds of tracking options, overwhelming to manage2021-03-22
- Bad experience caused the loss of years of accumulated links from other users2021-03-09
- Logged-out users get a worse experience than logged-in users when opening links2020-06-13
- Yahoo login has been a pain; logins have been broken2019-12-20
- Password reset emails sent but the account was refused reset from that address2019-12-20
- Camera Roll's removal makes it hard to find and organize photos2019-08-08
- Main photo view vanished for long periods with no status updates2019-08-08
- Uploading photos is far more cumbersome than on Instagram, and the app feels awful2019-03-10
- Website is quite unusable when blocking aggressive tracking at DNS level2018-11-02
- People can't find the download button, so they ask the commenter for photos2018-11-01
- Map view shows everyone's photos bunched together instead of only the user's own2018-11-01
- Flickr app makes it impossible to organize or share photos2018-11-01
- Changing contact email requires hoops; Yahoo login forces email-as-login conflicts across accounts2018-11-01
- Hard to find own photos due to mixed infinite scrolling and pagination2018-04-21
- Scroll bar covered by overlay, and page down and space keys don't scroll2018-04-21
- Forced Yahoo login; lost account access and can't recover old photos2018-04-21
- Couldn't reset login because the secondary email on file was unknown2018-04-21
- Can no longer post a photo to Twitter directly from the mobile app2018-04-21
- Cannot log in or download originals; Yahoo support cannot link login to account2018-04-21
- Ads are interspersed between photos so browsing feels cluttered and annoying2018-04-21
- Couldn't figure out how the Yahoo-based login worked, so stopped using it2018-04-21
- Site is almost unusable in Safari on macOS 10.132018-04-21
- No batch delete option, so cleaning up many auto-uploaded photos took days2018-04-20
- Search returns many photos from one photographer, forcing users to scroll past irrelevant results2017-04-26
- Page styling is annoying and doesn't work on mobile devices2017-04-26
- Locked out of account and data with no way to recover access after changing email2017-04-26
- Old and new interface designs are mixed together, making the site inconsistent2017-04-25
- Signing in required recovering an old unused Yahoo account, which was painful2017-04-25
- Can't regain access to account; recovery options don't match user's situation2017-04-25
- Users find it impossible or miserable to sign in2017-04-25
- Locked out of account; took about 3 months of support emails to regain access2017-01-13
- Search returns few results and floods them with spam from the same account2017-01-13
- Can't reach a human to regain account access; support redirects are dead ends2017-01-12