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Update: It looks like Flickr has changed slightly since this was done and the script no longer works. Feel free to adapt it though!

Flickr provides a lot of tools and ways to change meta information about photos that you have already uploaded but one facility it has not provided is to be able to batch change descriptions. When I began uploading whole sets from the various locations I visited during a round-the-world trip, I used the comments field in iPhoto (which directly maps to the description field in Flickr) in which it is possible to batch change comments. This is great, and it allowed me to include a general description about the photos to say that they were "from a round-the-world trip, and here’s the section in the online diary that it relates to" and so. The problem is that I later changed the location of the web site that had the travel diary on it, so all the descriptions in Flickr contained invalid links. With thousands of photos already up there, I couldn’t do it one-by-one. So I decided to post a question on the Flickr help forum and see if there was a way to do it. And lo and behold, someone came up with a solution. And bugger me if this isn’t just the coolest little bookmarklet (or favelet, if that’s your preferred moniker). So, with this in mind, I thought I’d share this really useful tool.

First of all, go grab the bookmarklet from here (and be sure to read the instructions there).

Now, here’s a visual guide to using it:

1. Pick a set that you’ve already created (this bookmarklet will apply to a whole set, not selective photos within a set. If you need the latter, you’ll need to temporarily create a sub set with the pictures you want to affect):
   
   
2. Type your description in the first Description field (this can include HTML)
   
   
3. Then run the bookmarklet (I have it here in the toolbar in Safari). Note that this may not work in all browsers – I found that it worked with some sets in Firefox (on the Mac), but not others. In Safari it worked perfectly, no matter how large the set was.
   
   
4. You’ll see the description has been copied into all subsequent description fields:
   
5. Scroll down the page and hit the Save button – don’t forget this important part!
   
   
6. Now, when you look at any of those photos in Flickr you’ll see the changes to the description field have worked like a treat :-)