Stop WordPress from Creating Extra Cropped Image Sizes

Stop WordPress from Creating Extra Cropped Image Sizes Whenever you upload an image to your WordPress site through the media library, it automatically creates and stores multiple additional versions of that image. If your site doesn’t utilize these extra image sizes, they will consume valuable storage space and increase the size of your server backups. In this guide, I’ll walk you through the default image sizes, explain why they are generated, show you how to identify additional image sizes and provide you with the code snippet to prevent WordPress from creating unnecessary image sizes. TL;DR Skip to the snippet or the plugin . In this article Default Image Sizes in WordPress Image Sizes Created by Your WordPress Theme & Plugins Why are Extra Resized Images Created WordPress Media Settings Admin Panel The Big Image Size Threshold in WordPress How to Check what Image Sizes are Defined on Your Site? Prevent WordPress from Creating Extra Image Sizes Exclude Specific Image Sizes from Being Created on Upload Tips for Reducing the Need for Resized Images How to Remove Old Image Sizes from Your Server Should You Stop WordPress From Generating Extra Image Sizes? Default Image Sizes in WordPress Here is a table of all the default image sizes in WordPress: Name Default Size Description thumbnail 150×150 User defined thumbnail size. medium 300×300 User defined medium size. medium_large 768×0 For responsive and HDPI displays. large 1024×1024 User defined large size. 1536×1536 1536×1536 For retina/HDPI displays. 2048×2048 2048×2048 For larger, high-resolution displays. -scaled ~2560 When the original image uploaded is larger than the As you can see there are quite a lot! This means that each time you upload an image to your WordPress site, it could generate and store up to 7 additional image versions on your server! And these are only the default sizes defined in core, it doesn’t include any extra sizes defined by your themes & plugins. Image Sizes Created by Your WordPress Theme & Plugins Most classic WordPress themes (non-block themes) don’t make use of the thumbnail, medium and large core sizes. They usually register their own image sizes that work best with the design and layout of the theme. Plugins may also register new image sizes. This is common in plugins used to display posts or include custom post types. Prime examples would be directory, events, real estate, ecommerce, LMS, page builders, etc. This means your site could be creating even more image sizes and really bloating up your server and backup files. It’s a good idea to read the documentation for the theme and all plugins used on your site to ensure they are not creating unnecessary resized versions of your images. Most well coded themes and plugins will offer a setting to modify or disable any additional image sizes. If you are using our Total theme be sure to check out the documentation regarding the Image Sizes Panel . If you are not, but you are a developer you may want to have a look at...

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