You can reduce media size in WordPress primarily by adjusting image settings and optimizing your media files. Here's a breakdown of methods:
1. Adjusting Default Image Sizes in WordPress
WordPress automatically creates several sizes of each image you upload. You can control these sizes to reduce overall storage.
- Navigate to Settings > Media in your WordPress dashboard.
- Here, you'll find options to modify the width and height for:
- Thumbnail size
- Medium size
- Large size
- Enter your desired dimensions. Remember that smaller values mean smaller file sizes.
- Click "Save Changes". New uploads will now adhere to these specifications.
Important Considerations:
- Existing Images: Changing these settings will not affect images already uploaded. You'll need to regenerate thumbnails for existing images (see section 3).
- Cropping: You can also choose how thumbnails are cropped (e.g., hard crop to exact dimensions or proportional scaling).
2. Optimizing Images Before Uploading
This is the most effective way to reduce media size.
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Choose the Right File Format:
- JPEG: Best for photographs with many colors. Offers good compression with minimal quality loss.
- PNG: Ideal for images with text, logos, or graphics that require transparency. Can be lossless, but results in larger files than JPEGs.
- WebP: A modern image format that offers superior compression and quality compared to JPEG and PNG. WordPress now supports WebP.
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Reduce Image Dimensions: Resize images to the actual size they will be displayed on your website before uploading them. Uploading a 2000px wide image that's displayed at 500px is wasteful. Use image editing software (e.g., Photoshop, GIMP, or online tools like TinyPNG) to resize.
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Compress Images: Use image compression tools to reduce file size without noticeable quality loss.
- Online tools: TinyPNG, ImageOptim, Compressor.io
- Desktop software: ImageOptim (Mac), RIOT (Windows)
3. Using WordPress Plugins for Image Optimization
Several plugins automate image optimization:
- ShortPixel Image Optimizer: Compresses images and converts them to WebP.
- Imagify: Another popular image compression plugin with various optimization levels.
- EWWW Image Optimizer: Optimizes images on your server, so no third-party service is needed.
- Smush: A free plugin that losslessly compresses images.
These plugins often offer features like:
- Automatic image compression on upload
- Bulk optimization of existing images
- WebP conversion
- Lazy loading (loads images only when they are visible on the screen)
- Regenerating thumbnails: This is crucial if you changed the default image sizes in WordPress (section 1) and want to apply those changes to existing media. Most of these plugins have the option to regenerate thumbnails.
4. Lazy Loading
Lazy loading can significantly improve page load speed by deferring the loading of offscreen images until the user scrolls down the page. Many image optimization plugins include lazy loading functionality.
5. Choosing the Right Hosting
While not directly related to media size, a good hosting provider with optimized servers can significantly improve website performance, even with larger media files. Consider a hosting provider with good CDN (Content Delivery Network) integration, which can deliver images from geographically closer servers to your users.
