What Is the WordPress Media Library?

The WordPress “I’m Sorry… What?” Guide

If you’ve been adding images to pages or publishing blog posts in WordPress, there’s a good chance your Media Library has already started filling up, even if you’ve never deliberately visited it.

The Media Library is where WordPress stores the images, documents and other media files you upload to your website. That might include photographs, graphics, logos, PDFs and, depending on how your website is set up, video or audio files too.

Whenever you upload an image while editing a page or adding a blog post, WordPress adds it to your Media Library automatically. You can then reuse that same file elsewhere on your website without having to upload another copy.

Which is useful, because left to its own devices, a Media Library can become a bit of a dumping ground.

Finding and reusing files you’ve already uploaded

You don’t need to upload a fresh copy of an image every time you want to use it.

When adding media to a page or post, you can choose an existing file from your Media Library instead. You can also search for files and filter what’s displayed, which becomes increasingly useful as your library grows.

This is where giving files sensible names before uploading them can save you a lot of head scratching later.

A filename such as JMVA-wordpress-media-library.jpg gives you a fighting chance of finding it again. Something called IMG_4837.jpg or final-final-NEW2.jpg... considerably less so.

Good filenames can also help search engines understand what an image is about, so there are benefits beyond keeping your own Media Library manageable.

Be careful when deleting files

Eventually, you might decide it’s time for a tidy-up.

Before merrily deleting everything that looks old or unnecessary, it’s worth remembering that files in your Media Library may still be used somewhere on your website.

Deleting the file from the Media Library deletes the actual media file from WordPress. If a page, post or link is still using it, you could be left with a missing image or a link to a document that no longer works.

And it isn’t always immediately obvious where a particular file is being used.

So if you’re not certain whether something is still needed, check before hitting delete. A slightly untidy Media Library is preferable to discovering three weeks later that you’ve accidentally removed something important from a page you’d forgotten about.

A little organisation goes a long way

WordPress doesn’t organise the standard Media Library into folders in the same way you might organise files on your computer, so good habits when uploading files can make a big difference.

Use descriptive filenames rather than whatever name your camera or computer has given the file, and check whether something has already been uploaded before adding another copy.

It’s also worth thinking about the size of the images you’re uploading. Huge image files straight from a camera or stock image website can take up unnecessary space and affect how quickly your pages load. Resize and optimise them for the web before uploading where possible.

You don’t need a beautifully curated Media Library with everything lined up in military formation. You just want to be able to find what you need without wading through six identical logos and a collection of PDFs nobody remembers uploading.

Think of it as the cupboard under the stairs

The Media Library reminds me a little of the cupboard under the stairs.

Some people keep theirs beautifully organised and know exactly where everything is.

Others throw things in, shut the door quickly and hope nothing falls out the next time they open it.

Either approach might work for a while, but once your website has been around for a few years, you’ll be very grateful for any effort you made to keep things reasonably organised along the way.

So the next time you’re about to upload logo-final-FINAL-v3.png, have a quick look in your Media Library first.

There’s every chance it’s already in there.