The Media Library is where you can manage your images, audio, videos, and documents all in one place. To view your Media Library, click on Media in your dashboard.
In this guide
Video Transcript
One thing I don’t leverage as often as I should, and that’s pretty helpful, is the media management section of the site.
So if I’m in my home and I go into this left side bar, I’m going to go into media, and you can see all the files that you uploaded, all the different versions of those files, And it’s even divided up into image and docs and videos and audio files.
So if you’re somebody who puts up video, and you put up podcasts, and you put up blog content, this is a really helpful way to manage assets that are in here.
A cool thing you can do in here is actually edit some of these images and how they look So if I wanted to go through and edit it here instead of while I’m creating my content, I can actually see all the attributes for it.
So maybe I want to change its name. See, it has a reference and credit already built in because I pulled that from Openverse.
I can add a description to it if I want, but I can also play around with the actual cropping. I can turn it upside down if I wanted to since he likes to hop around a lot.
I can mirror image it, which is kind of neat.
And I can also crop it down if I felt like that was too big.
So I can apply some of the block level features to it, like the duotone filter or rounding it out or anything like that, but I can edit the photo.
So if you find one you like, but you want to change the size of it, you want to change the orientation of it to make it fit the content that you’re working on, you can actually do that from the media library. Or say you wanted two different versions of one of them. Let’s say I wanted since, for some reason, I have two Chewbaccas in here.
Oh, and you can multi-select and bulk edit too, which is kind of cool.
So I’m going to I’m gonna choose this, I’m gonna edit this image, and say I wanna flip this one. I’ll click done, and I’ll save it. So now I have Chewbaccas facing two different ways in here, which is kinda neat.
So you can see all the content in here. Like I said, if you have, you can filter it down to just images. I don’t have any docs uploaded right now or any of these things, but if you have all those different assets, you can actually go in and see them and manage them.
Maybe a document was an outdated version, and you wanna go in and replace it or edit it, get rid of the old one, so you don’t accidentally link it anywhere else and can link people to the new one.
Maybe you have different versions of the videos, or you want to clip and edit them down or something.
So the Media Library is made to manage all these things. You can do a lot of this from the post editor when you’re adding your image into it, but if you have a workflow where maybe you’re uploading a bunch of images at the same time or it’s a series of images you might use across different pages and posts, the Media Library is a great place to upload them and get them set kind of the way that you want to so you can go through and just make sure they’re ready to go when you start putting your content in.
When you add images and other media to your pages and posts, they will appear in your Media as well. You can also add files directly to your Media to later use in your pages and posts. There are two methods to do this: add files from your computer and add via URL.
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A free WordPress.com site includes 1 GB of media storage. Upgrade to a paid plan to increase your storage.
- In the Media Library click Add New.
- Select the media files you want to upload from your computer and click upload or open (the name of the button depends on which browser you’re using.)
You can select multiple media files at once by holding down the control key (on PC) or the command key (on Mac) while clicking multiple files in the upload window.
You can also drag and drop media files from your computer directly into the Media Library.
Learn more about the accepted file types that you can add to your Media Library.
To add a file using a URL, first click on the chevron (downward arrow icon) next to Add New, then click Add via URL.
Copy the URL of the media file and paste it into the field, then click Upload.
Media details include the title, caption, alt text (for images), description, URL, and metadata (like size, type, and upload date) of the media file. To edit these details, follow these steps:
- In the Media Library, click on the media file you want to edit. You’ll see a border around the thumbnail and a number in the bottom right corner.
- Click the Edit button.
- Make your changes to any of the editable fields.
- Click Done in the lower right corner when you’re finished.
You can edit multiple files at a time by clicking each file you want to edit before you click the Edit button. You’ll see each selected file will have a number on the thumbnail in the order that you clicked them.
Once you click Edit, you’ll be able to cycle through the files using the left and right arrows that appear over the file preview.
To obtain the direct URL for the media file you’ve uploaded, first select the media item, then select Edit.
In the details view, you can copy the URL for your file.
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When you use our advanced hosting features, such as installing custom plugins and themes, the URL of media on your site will be updated to reflect the new hosting configuration. Files uploaded prior to adding these features that are hosted on *.files.wordpress.com will continue to be available at the original URL.
If you have a photo that needs to be cropped or rotated, you can do so from your Media Library. Your site must be public to use these features.
- Click on the item you want to edit and click Edit.
- In the media preview, click Edit Image:
- Rotate, crop, and flip the image as needed.
- Click Done to save your changes.
To find your previously uploaded items, select the magnifying glass icon near the top right, then type in the file name or title of the media item you’re looking for.
You can delete files from your Media library to free up space.
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Deleting a file from your Media library will also remove it from the post or page it is on. Deleted media files cannot be recovered. You may want to export a backup of the media library beforehand.
To delete files from Media, click once on each file. Then, click the trash can icon at the top, next to Edit. You will see a warning that it will remove the files from being shown on your site. Click Delete to confirm:
You can connect your Google Photos account to view your most recent Google photos and add them to your site.
The Free Photo Library gives you access to a library of over 40,000 beautiful and useful copyright-free images to use on your site. They are provided courtesy of Pexels. Add these images to your site to create stunning designs.
Openverse is a search engine for openly-licensed media which gives you access to over 600 million Creative Commons licensed and public domain image and audio files. All files can be used free of charge.
If you wish to download your images and other media files to your computer, you can use the Export Media Library option located at Tools → Export.
Your media library will be downloaded as a .tar archive. On Mac OS X you can unpack this archive by double-clicking on the icon. For Windows you might need to download a program like 7-Zip to allow you to do this.
If your media library is very large and/or you have a slower connection, the download might time out before it completes. If your browser supports resuming a failed download you can resume it without starting over completely.
Media files downloaded in this way cannot be imported to another WordPress site. If you want to move your media to a different site, it’s best to use the regular export option described above.
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This feature is not currently available on sites with plugins installed. Instead, you can download a backup of your site which will contain your media files.
These instructions are referring to the WP Admin interface. To view this interface, click the View tab in the upper right corner and select Classic view.
The Media menu can be used to manage your existing media files, such as images, audio, videos, and documents. You can also upload new files to your Media Library using Media → Add New.
The default screen for the Media menu is the Media Library. By default, the Media Library will display images in a Grid View.
In Grid View you can sort your media types by Images, Audio, and Video files by selecting the drop down menu at the top that says All Media Types. You can also filter by dates through the All Dates drop down.
You may also see two additional categories.
Unattached – Unattached files mean that the media file was uploaded directly to the media library, and not from within a post or page. If a media file was then added to a post or page after uploading to the media library, it is still considered Unattached. Even if a file is Unattached, it doesn’t mean that the file isn’t being used somewhere on your site. More details on Unattached media.
Mine – if your site has multiple admins, you can filter to the media files only you have uploaded.
If you wish to Delete multiple media files, click Bulk Select and click the files you want to delete. Then, click Delete Selected. This will permanently delete the files from your account and site.
If you wish to switch the images to display in a List View, select the List view icon on the top left menu bar to change the display mode.
The List View mode will display your files in a list, where you can see when the file was uploaded, what page or post the file is attached to and who uploaded the file.
If you wish to bulk delete your images, check the box next to each image you wish to delete, and then select the bulk actions drop-down menu. Then select delete permanently, and select apply.
As with other dashboard pages, you can use the Screen Options in the upper right to configure which columns are shown in the table.
Under the title Media Library, you can see how much upload space you have used and how much is remaining. If you find that you need additional space, you can upgrade your plan to add more storage.
In the Grid View, you can edit an image by moving above an image with your cursor and selecting the image.
In the List View, place the cursor over a file name to see the Edit, Delete Permanently, and View action links appear. Then select the Edit link.
After you select Edit in List View (or select the image in Grid View) the Edit Media page will load, allowing you to change the default Title, Alternate Text, Caption, and Attachment Page Content.
You can enable or disable comments for an individual image lower on the page in the Discussion section. If you don’t see this section, click on Screen Options in the top right to enable it.
Remember to click the Update button after making any changes.
If you click on the Edit Image button on this page, you will be able to perform some basic image editing functions on the image.
When viewing your site’s Media Library in Classic View, there is a filter that shows your Unattached files.
Unattached mean that the media file was uploaded directly to the media library, and not from within a post or page editor.
Note that there are cases where files may be Unattached but used on the site, when:
- Files are referenced in a widget or sidebar.
- Files are uploaded to post A, then reused in post B, and then deleted in post A.
- Files are uploaded directly to the media library, then later added in a post, they will still be considered as Unattached.
Using the Unattached filter can help narrow down which files to delete to clear out some storage space, but be careful to only delete Unattached media files that you are certain are not in use somewhere on your site.
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Deleted media files cannot be recovered, so it is recommended to download a backup of the media library before doing some spring cleaning.
Attaching files (images, specifically) to a post is not always necessary, although some themes use attached images for slideshows or other theme-specific features.
Switch to the List View and filter to the Unattached files. Hover over the file you want to attach and click the Attach link.
You can also attach multiple files at once: check the box next to each file name that you would like to attach, then select the Attach to a post option in the Bulk Actions drop-down menu, and finally click the Apply button. This will only work if all the files selected are unattached.
When attaching items, this screen will pop up:
You can type some text into the search box to narrow down the list of pages and posts. Click Search to filter the list.
Then, click the radio button next to the post or page you would like to attach the files to, and then click the Select button.
You will then be returned to your Unattached file listing and receive the following message, letting you know that the reattachment was successful.
- It’s not possible to un-attach an image from a post or a page. If you’d like to use the attached image with another post, please try uploading it again directly from the Media Library. Please note that the newly uploaded image’s URL will be different.
- It’s only possible to attach items that are unattached. It’s not possible to attach one image to multiple posts or pages.
- If you are uploading to the WordPress.com Dashboard’s Media Library, try uploading the file through WP-Admin by switching to your dashboard’s Classic View under Screen Options in the top right.
- If you have a plugin-enabled site, check to ensure no plugin conflicts.
- If you have blurry images, we have a guide dedicated to troubleshooting steps.
