Export Your Media Library

Your website’s Media Library contains all images, videos, audio, and documents that you have uploaded to your site. This guide will show you how to download a copy of these files.

In this guide

1. When to Use Media Library Export
2. Export the Media Library
   1. Sites Without Plugins
   2. Sites With Plugins

When to Use Media Library Export

You can export your site’s media to download a copy of your images, videos, and other media files for safekeeping. Although this isn’t necessary (your files are already safe and secure on WordPress.com!), the ability to download the media library can offer peace of mind to site owners.

It’s also useful if you wish to access the original files if you no longer have another copy saved anywhere other than your website.

The media library export file is not used to move your website’s content to another site or platform. For that purpose, follow the steps to export your site’s content.

Export the Media Library

The process to export your media library differs depending on whether or not your site has plugins installed.

Sites Without Plugins

To download the media library from your website, take the following steps:

1. Visit your site’s dashboard.
2. Navigate to Tools → Export.
3. Next to “Export media library,” click the “Download” button.
4. Wait a few moments for the export to begin. The media library will then start downloading to your computer as a .tar archive with files organized into folders by year and by month.
   • On Mac OS X, you can unpack this archive by double-clicking on the folder.
   • On Windows, you might need to download a program like 7-Zip to extract the file, if your computer does not provide the option to extract/unzip the file.

⚠️

If your media library is very large and/or you have a slower connection, the download might time out with an error before it completes. If your browser supports resuming a failed download, you can resume it without starting over completely. If not, your download may require a download manager program such as Free Download Manager for Windows or for Mac.

Sites With Plugins

For sites with plugins installed, you can download media files from the backups section of your dashboard.

To download the media library of your plugin-enabled website:

1. Visit your site’s dashboard.
2. Navigate to Jetpack → Backup (or Jetpack → VaultPress if using WP-Admin).
3. Click the button labeled “Actions” at the top right corner of the latest backup event, and select the “View Files” option.
4. In the list of files, click on wp-content to expand that folder, and select only the uploads folder:

5. Click on the button labeled “Download selected files” at the top.
6. On the next page, click the button labeled “Download file” to download the media library of your site. We’ll also email you a link to your downloadable media library backup file.

Download the media library of plugin-enabled sites.