How do I determine which images are not used

  • I have a basic blog which does use between 1,500-2,000 images however the media library shows in excess of 10,000 images. I need to save space and delete unused images however when I click on “unattached”, it shows that only about 20 images are “attached”. I am using the WP photo gallery as well as directly using some images in the media library. How can I determine which images are actually not used/attached?

    If this isn’t possible, can you confirm that an image used in the photo gallery will remain if I remove it from the media library? Any suggestions on how to safely remove about 8,000 images would be greatly helped. The blog is CostaRicaAndBeyond.com and does not have any Woo Commerce plugin.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Plugin Author AlanP57

    (@alanp57)

    We are not familiar with the WP photo gallery and thus cannot answer your questions with certainly. You can always do a test by adding an image to the gallery, then deleting the image in the media library and see what happens.

    Have you tried the plugin Media Cleaner – Clean & Optimize Space? It does a good job in cleaning images which are not in use.

    Also, some people say that when you upload images, you should do this from within the post, by using the “Add Media” button in 1-step (Classic Editor), rather than ad you images to the media Library first and then attach them to a post in 2-steps.

    Excuse my inexperience, but I have 1000s of photos on my posts, but many were only 1 of several versions I uploaded via the media library to a post, then deleted. Attached vs unattached does not accurately represent which I deleted from the post and are safe to delete from the media library. Shouldn’t there be a function that tells you which are not being used, that actually means not used, rather than some code of unattached vs attached with a hidden criteria? How do I know which in the media library is the one currently in use so I can avoid erasing it, and know which I can delete. I’ve had big trouble erasing things that said they were unattached, then ending up with a glaring ‘missing photo’ symbol on the post. Thank you for your help.

    Plugin Author AlanP57

    (@alanp57)

    We only do support for our plugins here. This question pertains to WordPress media files and you should look for a forum here that is related to that topic, perhaps https://www.ads-software.com/support/forum/miscellaneous/.

    • This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by AlanP57.
Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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