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# Check and change Flickr photo privacy in bulk

> Find public Flickr photos by album or date and switch them to Family, Friends or Private in one run, with a count of what is still public.

Source: https://cotlet.dev/integrations/flickr-api-mcp-server/change-photo-privacy

Years of family photos sit on your photostream as public, and you want them seen by Family only without opening thousands of photo pages.

Cotlet does it in your own Flickr account with list\_photos, get\_photo and set\_photo\_privacy, called by your AI agent, an n8n workflow or a script.

[Sign up free](https://cotlet.dev/app/signup?app=flickr) [All Flickr tools](https://cotlet.dev/integrations/flickr-api-mcp-server.md)

Hosted · nothing to install or maintain

## Can Flickr do this on its own?

Flickr has manual privacy tools only (checked 17 Oct 2026): a setting on each photo page and bulk changes in Camera Roll and the Organizr. The Flickr API can change privacy, but new keys are for Pro subscribers only, and there is no official MCP server. Nothing on Flickr changes privacy by a rule such as "older than 2024".

## How you do it in Flickr today

1. For one photo, scroll to the Additional info section on its photo page, select Viewing privacy and choose a setting.
2. For many photos, hover over You and select Camera Roll, or use You > Organize, and drag photos into the batch area.
3. Select the photos, use the privacy icon in the bar at the bottom of Camera Roll and select Change.
4. Flickr lets you set each item to everyone, no one, or only the contacts you marked as Friends or Family.
5. After the change you still need to check which photos are in groups or albums, because those spread visibility.

## How to check and change Flickr photo privacy in bulk

Prompt

```
List my public photos from before 2024 in the album Family trips. Make them visible to Family only, and tell me how many photos are still public afterwards.
```

1. 01  
### Select by rule  
list\_photos filters by album, upload date and current privacy, so the set is exactly "public photos in Family trips from before 2024". The agent shows the count before it changes anything.
2. 02  
### Check what spreads visibility  
get\_photo shows the groups and albums a photo is in. A photo in a group is flagged, because members of that group see a non-public photo too, and the agent asks what to do with it.
3. 03  
### Check the free-account cap  
On a free account, the agent counts non-public photos first. If the change would pass the 50 non-public items Flickr allows, it stops and tells you the number instead of making a partial change.
4. 04  
### Change in small batches  
set\_photo\_privacy runs once per photo with public, friends, family, friends\_family or private. It asks for your OK by default, because a wrong value can hide or expose a photo.
5. 05  
### Report the remainder  
The agent lists what is still public, what moved to each setting and what it skipped, so you can open one photo and compare.

### What you get back

Example data

```
Public photos in Family trips before 2024: 212
Changed to Family only: 204
Skipped 6 (in the group "Street Lisbon", your call)
Skipped 2 (would pass the 50 non-public limit)
Still public in this album: 8
```

### Other ways to ask

- Make every photo tagged "kids" private and list the albums it appears in.
- Show me which of my photos are in groups while set to Friends or Family.
- Switch the album Product shoot to public once I say go, and nothing before.
- Count my non-public photos and tell me how close I am to the free limit.

## What Flickr allows, and what to know first

- Flickr gives each photo its own setting: everyone, no one, or only Friends or Family contacts.
- Adding a non-public photo to a Flickr group makes it visible to all members of that group.
- A guest pass, or an album that the photo is part of, lets anyone with the link see the photo.
- Free accounts are limited to 50 non-public items, and Pro accounts have no such limit.
- Free accounts can post only Safe content, and a Pro account can also upload moderate or restricted content.

set\_photo\_privacy asks for your OK by default. To run it on a schedule without you, switch confirmation off for that tool in your dashboard.

Sources: [Flickr Help: Change your privacy settings](https://www.flickrhelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/4404078163732-Change-your-privacy-settings) · [Flickr Help: Privacy Settings vs Safety Levels](https://www.flickrhelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/4404064522132-Privacy-Settings-vs-Safety-Levels) · [Flickr Help: Reasons to upgrade to Flickr Pro](https://www.flickrhelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/4404078815508-Reasons-to-upgrade-to-Flickr-Pro) · [Flickr Help: Add or remove photos in Flickr groups](https://www.flickrhelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/4404069536532-Add-or-remove-photos-in-Flickr-groups)

## Call set\_photo\_privacy from a script

curl

```
curl -X PUT https://cotlet.dev/api/v1/flickr/photos/53917620088/privacy \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $COTLET_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"privacy":"family"}'
```

Example response

```
{
"photo_id": "53917620088",
"previous_privacy": "public",
"privacy": "family",
"status": "updated"
}
```

MCP: add https://cotlet.dev/mcp/v1 with the same key; the call is flickr\_write → set\_photo\_privacy. Example data.

[Schedule it in n8n, Make, Zapier or cron](https://cotlet.dev/integrations/flickr-api-mcp-server.md#automations)

## Flickr tools this automation uses

__Cotlet Flickr tools used to check and change Flickr photo privacy in bulk__
| Tool | Parameters |
| ------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| list\_photos | album\_id, uploaded\_since, privacy, untagged, in\_album, limit, cursor |
| get\_photo | photo\_id |
| set\_photo\_privacy | photo\_id, privacy |

[All 13 Flickr tools with descriptions](https://cotlet.dev/integrations/flickr-api-mcp-server.md#tools)

## Frequently asked questions

### Is it safe to connect Flickr to Cotlet?

Yes. You sign in to Flickr yourself, in your own Cloud Browser in the EU, and we never save your password. Your agents only get Flickr once you enable it, every background request is listed, and the browser profile is stored encrypted with AES-256-GCM, the cipher 1Password uses for its vaults. The AI model never sees a login, posts and messages wait for your OK, and Disable for agents cuts access in one click. Independent scanners grade cotlet.dev A+ on Qualys SSL Labs, securityheaders.com and Mozilla Observatory; live results are on https://cotlet.dev/security.

## More Flickr automations

- [Tag and title new Flickr photos](https://cotlet.dev/integrations/flickr-api-mcp-server/tag-and-title-photos.md)
- [Sort Flickr photos into albums](https://cotlet.dev/integrations/flickr-api-mcp-server/sort-photos-into-albums.md)
- [Flickr API and MCP server: every tool](https://cotlet.dev/integrations/flickr-api-mcp-server.md)
- [All use cases](https://cotlet.dev/use-cases.md)

## Give your agent access to Flickr.

Free 7-day trial with 2,000 credits, no card needed. Cotlet is independent and not affiliated with Flickr.

[Sign up free](https://cotlet.dev/app/signup?app=flickr)

---

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Cotlet is an independent service. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any of the products listed on this site. Product names are trademarks of their respective owners.

## For AI agents: sign your user up

Is your user asking you to sign them up for Cotlet? You can do it for them, no account or key needed.

1. Read the fields and their allowed values: GET https://cotlet.dev/api/v1/access-requests
2. Ask the user for each value: email, apps, what you will do with them. If they leave the password to you, generate a strong one and show it to them.
3. Show the user what you will send, then POST it as JSON to https://cotlet.dev/api/v1/access-requests.

One call creates the account and sends the access request; we email the user when access is granted.