Urgent questions on processing existing images

Also, I’m using a “responsive” theme and a “responsive” lightbox gallery – not sure how many sizes of each image are normal for this situation…

Hello TeqToo,

the plugin can’t differentiate used from non-used image sizes, it cleans up all image sizes (other than the default ones) and then it generates them again as they are requested. What that means is that this is not a one-time-use plugin, it has to stay active in order to generate image sizes as they are requested.

So it will clean up a lot of stuff, but that’s not a reason to worry as it will later generate them again only if they are needed.

The amount of image sizes and their actual dimensions do not matter, the plugin makes sure it does not touch the default image sizes, all others are cleared regardless of their size (unless their size matches the size of the default size exactly).

And yes, you can alter the size of other image sizes later and do a cleanup after that, and the plugin will properly generate them when they are requested.

All that said, it is always recommended to make a backup of your website before deploying any “new” software. This plugin never touches the original sizes to its activity can’t (in theory) lose you any data, but it’s always wise to have a backup.

I hope this answers your questions.

it cleans up all image sizes (other than the default ones) and then it generates them again as they are requested.

Does this mean that for all the images currently on the site, if I have set the image to display as a “custom size”, when I run the cleanup on the existing media, I will have to go back through the entire site and re-set the custom sizes before they will display that way?

Hi,

not sure what you mean, where have you set it as “custom size” exactly?

When I upload an image to the media gallery, and insert it in a page, to begin with I’m presented with a list of three default sizes – thumbnail, medium, and full size. But once the image has been inserted into the page, if I click the “edit” button, there’s another choice – “Custom size” – where I can make an infinite adjustment on the exact size I want the image to display as. Some of the standalone images on the pages I’ve made on this site are set to display as a custom size instead of one of the default sizes.

Oh, well that action does not actually generate a new size. It used the file size you originally selected when inserting the image into page, and only adds width/height to the html markup in order to render the image size you specified.

So those custom sizes are not stored in the database and as such, they do not take up any extra space no matter how many custom sizes you create this way, and the plugin will not see them.

OK, so when you say “when it is requested” do you mean requested from the website creator through the admin panel? Or requested from the visitor’s browser?

I mean requested on the frontend, so by visitors browser. After the cleanup, you won’t have to do anything, it is an automated process.

One last (I think) question – As I said, most of my images are no larger than 1024 X ?; however, my banner images are 1920 X 384. What will happen to them when I run the Clean Up feature?

No problem ??

What happens depends on if that image was resized to the specific image size. Plugin goes through every image uploaded to your media and cleans up any variation of that image that was produced by the custom image size. I’m not familiar with your custom image sizes setup so I can’t comment specifically.