Disable Media Pages vs Media Cleaner

Completely disable “attachment” pages created by WordPress. By default, WordPress creates a page for each of your attachments. This is can be undesirable because of two reasons: Search engine optimization Attachment pages don’t have any content, except an image, so they provide little value and can negatively affect your SEO because they are so-called thin content. Even worse, attachment pages may in some cases rank higher than your actual content pages which leads to a poor user experience. Reserved slugs Attachment pages can accidentally reserve slugs on your site. Let’s say you upload an image named contact.jpeg, an attachment page https://example.com/contact is automatically created. If you then try to create a page named Contact, the URL for that page will be https://example.com/contact-2 which isn’t that great. How it works This plugin works by automatically setting all attachment slugs to an unique id, so they won’t conflict with your pages. If an attachment page is accessed, the plugin will set a 404 status code and display the “page not found” template. You can also mangle any existing attachment slugs so they won’t cause any issues in the future. WP CLI support The plugin supports WP CLI. Mangle existing attachment slugs wp disable-media-pages mangle Restore attachment slugs wp disable-media-pages restore Note for WordPress 6.4 WordPress 6.4 includes a new feature that allows you to disable attachment pages. However, this feature redirects attachment pages to the file URL instead of returning a 404 error. To completely disable attachment pages, you should use this plugin instead. The WP 6.4 feature also does not fix the issue where attachment pages reserve slugs for pages. Also, there is not user interface to enable or disable media pages, they are automatically disabled for new sites but remain enabled for existing sites. Because of these issues, I recommend you to use this plugin instead of the built-in feature. The plugin will be updated in the foreseeable future, at least until attachment pages are completely removed from WordPress core and older WordPress versions are no longer in use. Thanks Special thanks to Greg Schoppe for his research and inspiration that helped a lot with developing this plugin. Support the plugin Maintaining a WordPress plugin is a lot of work. If you like the plugin, please consider rating it on WordPress.org. You can also support me on GitHub sponsors. Thank you! If you are interested, you can also check out my other WordPress plugins: Disable Customizer Disable Drop Cap ACF Image Aspect Ratio Crop

Media Cleaner is a powerful plugin that helps you clean up your WordPress media library by deleting unused media entries and files, as well as fixing broken entries. With an internal trash feature, you can preview and confirm changes before permanently deleting anything. Plus, Media Cleaner uses smart analysis to ensure compatibility with specific plugins and themes. Use it alongside Database Cleaner for the ultimate clean-up experience. Media Cleaner is like a ninja assassin for your Media Library – it’ll stealthily take out all the unnecessary media and broken entries that are cluttering up the place. Just make sure you have a solid backup plan in place before you let this bad boy loose. To learn more about compatibility, features, and the Pro version, check out the tutorial on the official website. COMPATIBILITY This plugin is compatible with all media types, including retina and WebP versions. It has been tested on a wide range of WordPress versions, including the latest version with Gutenberg, as well as on various themes with a large community of users. It also supports WooCommerce. For users with more complex plugins for handling website content, the Pro version may be necessary for optimal compatibility. We are constantly working to increase compatibility with other plugins. PRO VERSION Media Cleaner Pro adds extra features to the free version of Media Cleaner: Filesystem Analysis: Scans your physical /uploads directory and matches it against the Media Library. Extra support for complex plugins, such as ACF, Metabox, Divi Builder, Fusion Builder (Avada), WPBakery Page Builder, Visual Composer, Elementor, Beaver Builder, Brizy Builder, Oxygen Builder, Slider Revolution, Justified Image Grid, Avia Framework, and many more! Live Site Scan: Analyzes the online version of your website, potentially improving accuracy in some cases. WP-CLI support: Allows you to run the plugin at a higher speed or automatically with direct server access (via SSH).