Photo upload limitations

  • jdhidden · Member ·

    I have been adding photos regularly to my blog posts. I am no longer able to do this and assume I have reached the 3MB limit of my free site. I tried deleting some photos from previous posts but am still unable to upload new photos. Should this not work? Or once the limit is reached does deleting previous posts have no effect. I know I can upgrade to a paid personal account

  • maksimurasov · Member ·

    Hi @jdhidden,

    Let me ask some questions to start with:

    What is your website address?
    How much free space is indicated in Media>Add New section?
    “Browser uploader” also does not help?
    Do You get any error message?
    Have You tried uploading other file types or upload already existing pictures again?

    Thanks in advance!

  • jdhidden · Member ·

    Thanks for the quick response I answer each of your questions below.

    maksimurasov wrote:

    Hi @jdhidden,

    Let me ask some questions to start with:

    What is your website address?
    https://hiddenadventures599988048.wordpress.com

    How much free space is indicated in Media>Add New section?
    100% of 3 GB used. However, I deleted some media photos and that did not change

    “Browser uploader” also does not help?
    I upload photos via “upload” in media

    Do You get any error message?
    Yes: “This file exceeds the maximum upload size for this site.”

    Have You tried uploading other file types or upload already existing pictures again?

    Yes, I tried uploading a picture I had used previously

    Overall, I understand I have used all the 3GB allowed with a free account; however, I am puzzles as to why deleting existing photos does not free up additional space (I deleted about 10 and could not add one).

  • kokkieh · Staff ·

    Hi there,

    On my end it shows you’re at 59% space used for that site. If you still see 100%, try clearing your browser cache and see if that helps.

    That said, deleting 10 images will only help if the combined filesize of those images is bigger than the filesize of the one you want to upload. In other words, if the filesize for those images are 100kb each, that will only free up 1Mb of space. If you want to upload an image that’s 2Mb big, you still won’t have enough space.

    =====

    I see you have some images in your library going up to 5000px/8MB big. A way you can make your storage last longer is to resize your images to the actual size at which they’ll be used before you upload. Your theme, for example, has a content area of only 612px wide, and supporting featured images up to 2000px. Most computer screens won’t show an image full-size that’s bigger than around 1500px.

    To leave room for if you one day decide to update to a different theme, let’s say you resize your images for post content to 1200px before uploading them to the library. Resizing a 5000px image to 1200px changes the file size from 8Mb to only around 200kb. That’s a massive saving in size, which will allow you to upload many more images before your storage runs out. So perhaps consider doing this going forward.

    https://wordpress.com/support/media/image-optimization/

  • maksimurasov · Member ·

    @jdhidden,
    My idea is same as @kokkieh advised, to upload optimized images to save space.
    F.e. uploading a 5MB image to Media Library will use 5-7MB space (WP creates several copies of your file, to prevent that head to Settings > Media, set Thumbnail, Medium, Large to zero), but readers of the website usually will see much lighter version of the image- 0,1-1MB depending on circumstances.

    Image optimization will help you in the future, but how to reduce existing ones? A good question, as you need to resize most of existing images.

    Solution one: upgrade to Business plan, install plugin for bulk image optimization like Imsanity and reduce the big images in bulk. Then go back to lower plan if necessary.

    Solution two. To resize all existing images in Media library you need to download them all and then resize and upload back.
    You can copy files one by one using this simple method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWncNMxAaA8 .
    Or download them all as described there: https://wordpress.com/support/export/#exporting-the-media-library. Open .tar file using ZIP or something similar. Then optimize images using programs such as Paint, Gimp etc. and upload everything back.

    —
    This may be useful: in Masonry block properties (as well as all other gallery types), in the Link Settings you can choose what to do when a reader clicks on an image: https://snipboard.io/Mt3bvj.jpg . I like opening an bigger image, to see it in details:)

    Hope that helps!

  • jdhidden · Member ·

    Thank you both for the helpful suggestions. We are now resizing images before posting. The curious thing to me (and something that might be helpful to others) is that when you post a picture in a post and then delete it, it is retained in your media library. And I found the majority of my images were in my media library twice; some were in 3 or 4 times. This is probably due to my attempts at multiple uploads when the internet speed was slow. However, when I deleted all the duplicates in my media library, my used space went from 100% to 59%! So, I am good to go for awhile and may resize existing images

  • maksimurasov · Member ·

    Hi @jdhidden,

    I am happy to hear that!

    For deleting multiple unused images there is a bulk action, but it is unavailable by default. To enable it you can temporarily turn on wp-admin appearance as described here: https://wordpress.com/support/classic-editor-guide/#how-to-access-the-classic-editor and then in Media you will be able to choose unattached files like this: https://snipboard.io/ES0gNy.jpg.
    BUT: be careful, this action saves time, but can lead to some undesired results.
    And don’t forget to turn wp-admin appearance off:)

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