WordPress comes with some pretty neat tools to manage and edit images. Sadly often beginners are not aware of these WordPress image editing features. If you ever had a question about WordPress images, then you’re in luck. In this article, we will cover the most common image issues in WordPress and how to fix them.
Since this is a detailed article, here is the list of image related issues that we will cover this article.
- How to Upload Images in WordPress?
- How to Align Image to the Left or Right in WordPress?
- How to Add Caption below Images?
- How to Display Photos in Columns and Rows?
- Create Beautiful Responsive Image Galleries in WordPress
- How to Fix Missing Post Thumbnails / Featured Image?
- How to Fix Featured Image Appearing Twice Issue?
- Image too Big? How to Crop Images in WordPress?
- How to Add a Header Image in WordPress?
- How to Add a Background Image in WordPress?
- How to Find Free Images for Your WordPress Blog Posts?
- How to Tag Images in WordPress?
- How to Import External Images in WordPress?
- How to Require Featured Image for Posts in WordPress?
- How to Set a Default Featured Image in WordPress?
- How to Remove the Default Image Link in WordPress?
Let’s start with the most obvious one.
1. How to Upload images in WordPress?
Image uploads in WordPress are handled by the Media uploader.
You can insert an image in your content by clicking on the ‘Add Media’ button in post or page edit screen.
You can also directly upload images to ‘Media’ and use them later in a post or a page.
You will need to visit Media » Add New page to upload your image(s). Simply click on the select file buttons and then select the images from your computer that you want to upload.
2. How to Align Image to the Left or Right in WordPress?
You may have noticed how some popular blogs use images with text wrapped around them. This is done by using the align feature.
You can choose image alignment when uploading an image and before inserting it into your post.
Alternately, you can also use the align buttons using the image toolbar right inside post editor.
Click on the image to select it, and then click on the align buttons to adjust the alignment.
3. How to Add Caption below Images?
WordPress allows you to easily add caption for images. After you upload an image, WordPress media uploader allows you to provide image title, description, and caption.
You can also add captions to existing images by editing the image.
4. How to Display Photos in Columns and Rows?
Often users ask us how to neatly display photos in columns and rows.
Let’s say you want to share photos of a birthday party, or vacation photos. You can add them one by one into a post, but this will look like a lengthy list of images.
The better way to group your photos is by creating image galleries.
Simply upload your images when editing a post or page.
In the media uploader select the images you want to show and click on the ‘Create Gallery’ link in the left column.
Next, you need to click on the ‘Add new gallery’ button at the bottom right corner of the media uploader.
WordPress will now show you gallery settings.
You can choose how to link to an image, number of columns, size of gallery images, etc.
Once you are done, click on the ‘Insert Gallery’ button to finish.
For more detailed instructions see our guide on how to create an image gallery in WordPress.
5. Create Beautiful Responsive Image Galleries in WordPress
You will notice that the default WordPress image galleries don’t look so great on mobile. They are also not very easy to browse.
If you often upload images and photographs to your WordPress site, then you will need a proper WordPress photo gallery plugin.
We recommend using Envira Gallery. It allows you to easily create beautiful and fully mobile friendly image galleries on your WordPress site.
The best part is that it adds additional functionality like Albums, gallery templates, social sharing abilities, slideshows, watermarking, pagination, password protection, tagging, fullscreen view, and much more.
See our guide on how to easily create responsive WordPress image galleries with Envira for full instructions.
6. How to Fix Missing Post Thumbnails / Featured Image?
Most WordPress themes allow you to prominently display a featured image with your articles. Here is how to set a featured image in WordPress to avoid missing thumbnails.
If you do not see a featured image meta box in your post edit area, then click on Screen Options button on the top right corner of the screen and check the featured image check box.
Now, you can click on ‘Set Featured Image’ link to upload your post thumbnail.
After uploading the image, you need to click on the Set Featured Image button.
You will be able to see your post thumbnail in the featured image meta box like this:
For more details, see our guide on how to add featured image or post thumbnail in WordPress.
7. How to Fix Featured Image Appearing Twice Issue?
Inserting featured image inside post editor is a common mistake made by beginners.
Once you set a featured image, you don’t need to insert it into the post editor along with your post content.
Doing so, will make your featured image appear twice. Once as the featured image, and once as an image inside the post.
You can add other images in your post, but your featured image goes in the featured image box.
For more details, see our guide on how to fix featured image appearing twice in WordPress posts.
8. Image too Big? How to Crop Images in WordPress?
When you are uploading images from your phone or camera they are usually too big.
WordPress automatically creates small, medium, and large image sizes for your original upload. But sometimes you may need to crop the image in a different size.
WordPress is no Photoshop, but it comes with some basic image editing features like scale, crop, flip and rotate images.
Go to Media » Add New and upload your image. After uploading the image, you will see an Edit link next to the uploaded image.
Clicking on it will open the Edit Media screen where you will see an Edit Image button right below the image. This will open the WordPress image editor.
On the image editor screen, you will see buttons to perform some basic image editing tasks such as cropping, rotating, resizing, etc.
For more detailed instructions see our guide on how to crop, rotate, scale, and flip images in WordPress.
9. How to Add a Header Image in WordPress?
A header image in WordPress is a theme feature. Many WordPress free and premium themes comes with support for header image.
You can upload your own custom header image from the Appearance » Customize. WordPress will let you know the size requirements for the header image.
If you upload an image of the exact size, then it will be used as is. However, if you upload an image of a larger or different size, then you will be prompted to crop the image to fit the header image size.
10. How to Add a Background Image in WordPress?
Just like the custom header image, custom background image is also a WordPress theme feature. Many WordPress themes come with support for custom background images.
Visit Appearance » Customize to launch the theme customizer. If you can see the Background Image option, then your theme has support for custom backgrounds.
Simply upload an image from your computer or choose one from the media library. Once you have chosen the image you will be able to see the preview and other background image options.
You can tile the image, make it a fixed background, or allow it to be scrolled. Save your changes and preview your website.
11. How to Find Free Images for Your WordPress Blog Posts?
Images can make your articles stand out. However, you must respect copyrights of other people and try to find images that you are legally allowed to use.
We are often asked by our readers about how to find best royalty free images to use in their posts?
There are many websites where you can find free images to use. However, you will soon notice that images on those sites look overused and generic.
See our list of the best sources for free public domain and CC0-licensed images on the internet.
12. How to Tag Images in WordPress?
If you run a photography blog, then you will notice that WordPress does not allow you to sort photos and images.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could add tags to your images, so that you and your users can easily browse them?
Luckily, there are some great plugins that allow you to do just that.
For a photography related blog, the best option is to use Envira Gallery’s Tags addon.
Envira Gallery allows you to create beautiful, mobile-ready, photo galleries in WordPress. Using tags, your users can easily filter and sort photos without even reloading a page.
If you are not using Envira Gallery, then you can try WP MediaTagger plugin.
13. How to Import External Images in WordPress?
This question often comes up when you are migrating your site to WordPress. Some images on your website may still be pointing to older location.
Specially users importing blogs from Blogger, Squarespace, or WordPress.com may face this problem.
While the images on your site may appear correctly, they are still loading from external source. To solve this issue, all you need to do is install and activate Import External Images plugin.
It will check your posts for external images and show all of them. You can then simply import all those images with the click of a button.
For detailed instructions, see our guide on how to import external images in WordPress.
14. How to Require Featured Image for Posts in WordPress?
When running a multi-author site in WordPress, some of your authors may not be familiar with the featured image functionality.
In this case, you may want to remind yourself or your users to upload a featured image whenever they are submitting a post in WordPress.
You can do this by installing and activating the Require Featured Image plugin.
Once activated, the plugin will display a notification box in the post edit area, informing users that this post requires a featured image.
You and your users will be able to save posts as drafts, but you cannot publish the post until you add a featured image.
See our article on how to require featured images for posts in WordPress for more instructions.
15. How to Set a Default Featured Image in WordPress?
Finding the perfect featured image for every post or article is a tough task. Sometimes you may not want to add a featured image to a post, but your theme may look awkward without a featured image.
This is where a default featured image can come in handy. A default featured image is used when an article does not have a featured image of its own.
You can set a default fallback image by manually adding code in your theme’s functions.php file or you can set default featured image plugin.
Either way, you will have a branded fall back image, that does not look bad and fits nicely on your site.
16. How to Remove the Default Image Link in WordPress?
WordPress creates multiple copies of an image upload in different sizes. By default it adds a link to the original image file.
You can set default link to ‘none’ to remove the link, but doing it manually each time you upload an image is a little annoying.
You can stop WordPress from adding a link by adding this code in your theme’s functions.php file or a site-specific plugin.
function wpb_imagelink_setup() {
$image_set = get_option( 'image_default_link_type' );
if ($image_set !== 'none') {
update_option('image_default_link_type', 'none');
}
}
add_action('admin_init', 'wpb_imagelink_setup', 10);
For more details, see our guide on how to automatically remove default image links in WordPress.
We hope this article helped you fix some of the most common image issues in WordPress. You may also want to see our list of the most common WordPress errors and how to fix them.
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I want to make a video streaming website like netflix. I mean same to same can i make with wordpress
That was very helpful, thanks. I’ve mostly learned most of these things by trial and error, so I’m glad you gave me more information… The one thing I can’t seem to figure out is how to know when (and fix!) photos appear upside down. They look fine to me as the author but I’ll get comments from readers about them being upside down. Help please!
Please see our guide on how to fix upside down or flipped images in WordPress.
Most of the links in top show me a 404 page.
Please check.
Hi
When I add one image(929×400) to post there is not problem,
but when I want to Putting Multiple Images(452×400) On One Line,its appear column,and I cant put it on one line,while there is enough width for putting.
(2×452<929).what is problem?
thanks
Hi I am have problem of with my site how can I stop to see my post image and my features image appearing in home page and also how to stop situation I upload a video on my site and upload features image appearing my phone. What is the solution to these problem of video and features imgaes appearing in features image please help taken and cause
Thanks for a great article. My featured images have captions, but they don’t show up in the post. I don’t care that much, but I thought we were supposed to give credit to the photographer and link to the creative commons license to be legal?
You can add a plain link below the photograph or at the end of your posts.
Hello!
The images in my blog are showing little cropped up. But in internet explorer it is showing correct. What should i do? Please suggest.
Hello can you help me check up on my website, Both featured image and images inside post are not showing.
I started my blog recently and this was very helpful.Thank you so much!
Please, images are showing up on my blog posts. I use same theme and settings on another blog and they are working fine. Help me.
I am creating images for someone else who is placing them in wp. They have pictures and text. I use InDesign to arrange things and have saved the image as a jpeg. The type appears all blurry and bitmapped no matter how large I make the document. (4200 x 4800 pixels). What is the best way to create/save images?
In the last 2 weeks, all the image in the media library stopped showing. i suspect something changed the file format. pls what can i do?
Check file permissions.
Hello,
This article is actually really handy. Just I need to know how to set a default featured image for my homepage on wordpress.com. I have a feature set as the front page, and have tried to change the featured image to the logo. Rather oddly, as it is a feature that changes weekly, it only ever comes up with the week before’s content.
Could you help me? I’m going crazy over here
Please see our guide on the difference between self hosted WordPress.org vs free WordPress.com blog.
this post is pretty resourceful for beginners, BUT my problem is with uploading media on the backend. For several hours I’ve been frustrated with this issue – it’s just not working.
Initially, I thought it was the size of the images, but miraculously, 2 bigger sizes as compared to the others I’ve been trying to upload, have been successful. Then I figured it could be the resolution, but that’s also not the issue.
I keep receiving the HTTP ERROR notification after a slow process.
What am I not doing right? What do I do about this? I need help urgently. Thanks a million.
Featured images in posts are not visible on cell phones and tablets. They look fine on desktops. Problem started after updating WP and Enfold theme.
Please contact your theme developer for support, they will be able to help you better.
I am not able to see my features images or header images on my mobile device anymore. Nor is the contact form showing up these things are very important as to most of my viewers will be on cell phone or iPad. What could be the issue?
Hi there,
Great post but I still can’t find my issue and have looked and looked. I have a website and have only just noticed that when i go to my posts if i click on the image is shows a very large photo. usually on its own and i have to click back to remove seeing it. Can you help me undersand what setting i need to do so that the photo becomes sticky I guess and not an active large photo.
I have wp smushit to reduce image size and have check page load and it appears it is the images as the main culprit.
Many thanks Help !!
When you add an image into WordPress, you have the option to choose the size of image and whether or not it should be linked.
It seems that you have set it to link to image file. It also seems that you upload large image files. To stop WordPress from automatically linking see our guide on how to automatically remove default image links in WordPress.
Don’t know how to get my wp content and its giving me a lot of difficulty to rectify my “featured image writing fail to write file to hard disk”.
We created a Photo Gallery using WordPress. When I first go to the Photo Gallery page, a blue box pops up for a second and then disappears. It has blue lines, and each line has a number before it, 1, 2, 3, etc. Perhaps the number of images? Not sure. The developer who created our web site says he can’t figure out why its doing this. It happens on all the PCs in our office, and mobile devices. Anyone ever see this or have any answers on how to fix this annoying problem? It causes a delay in downloading our photo gallery. Thank you.
This issue can be caused by conflicting or broken CSS. Go to your plugin’s page and deactivate all your plugins. Visit your website after deactivating each plugin until you find the culprit. If you don’t find any plugin causing the issue, then you can safely activate the plugins you deactivated earlier. Try temporarily switching to a default WordPress theme, like Twenty Sixteen to find out if the issue is caused by your WordPress theme.
Hello,
All of the images in my posts are showing as thumbnails. I think somehow the Gallery was activated, but the blog owner does not want the images to show in the black pop up box that currently appears when you click on an image in a post. When I am in a published post now, for example, I click on a thumbnail. The thumbnail pops open a black box, inside of which you can scroll through and see all of the images inside of the post by clicking arrows back and forth. How do I return the posts to showing images without being inside the gallery? The images themselves need to open in a new tab or window, one that is linked through Google Drive. I cannot figure this out. Help!
Thanks in advance…..
When adding an image to a post, after uploading the image you can see some options in the right hand column. One of the option is to select the image size to add and how you want image to be linked. If this does not help, then deactivate all your plugins. See if this resolves the issue. If it does, then reactivate plugins one by one. After activating each plugin visit your site to see if the problem came back. Do that until you find the plugin that is causing the issue.
Hello wpbeginner,
First of all, allow me to thank you very much for your great efforts. I have a them which has a featured image to add. I was uploading the images to external website and then copy the image url and paste it in the featured image and it worked perfect. Now I want to change the theme, the images which are uploaded on the website are shown perfectly but the images which were uploaded on external website are not shown. So what to do in order to fix this? I don’t want to go again for the 1000 posts I have and add the images manually so that appear in the new theme. Is there an automatic way to do this?
I have created a popup with this plug in, but it does not automatically pop up every hour like it is supposed to, and it doesn’t respect any formatting changes I make to the popup itself. Can anyone help me?
HI,
I need your help so badly. To start I am not a tech person, but I do have my website and blog with wordpress.
I have written several articles for my blog and never had this issue with the images that I am including as part of the blog.
I uploaded all the images very nicely no issues there. The problem starts when I preview the post prior to approving. The images (pictures) look cut, but in the back the post and images look perfect. I don’t know what to do – I have read most of the articles but it is hard to figure out what to do when you actually don’t know what to look for. Could you please help me…..
Roxana.
I am trying to upload images to the media library and continue to get this error
“Cycle YP single page.jpg” has failed to upload due to an error
Missing a temporary folder.
Any idea what temporary file?
i am VERY new to this, we had this set up for us and I have no idea how to fix this issue – any advice will be gratefully received
Please contact your web host. It seems that the temporary folder used by PHP to store uploads is not accessible by the server.
I found this page looking for guidance on rotating header images, but learned so much more. Many thanks. I’ll be coming back here often.
My wp has suddenly stopped rotating images. Photos look fine in the draft section and in the media library – rotated correctly but in the “view post” or on my website on pc or mobile, photos are rotated incorrectly. Please help!
Can anyone explain why , when posted, my photos have a huge space under them before the next row of text? I do not want the text wrapped around my photo. I insert image, make it the size I want and then continue with text, but when posted they show with a huge empty space. Thanks
I’m trying to put a new image in my header. I’ve never had problems with this before, but this time every image I upload comes up as a teensy tiny little box in the upper left hand corner. I finally pushed “crop and publish” thinking maybe the image would magically appear once I’d done that, but nope. Now I have no image at all. Then I thought maybe it was my computer, so I used my husband’s computer and had the same problem-o. Help?
I am managing a website for a business and we have an employee page. All but one of the employee pages are perfect. We have it so the image is left aligned and there is text wrapped around it, however for this trouble page the text is butt up to the image and it looks sloppy but when I try to add indents it doesn’t work. How do I solve this?
Try adding margins to the tag. You may have to play around with the 4 values for margins (top, right,bottom,left).
style=”float: left; margin: 40px 10px 0px 20px;”
Add the style to the img tag.
How can you remove the link to all past uploaded images so al images link to “none”?
Please see How to Automatically Remove Default Image Links in WordPress
Bravo!!! This post has really helped today! Thank you very much.
How do I ensure that images in my blog posts that other people see in their reader come up as their original size that they appear on my website, and aren’t simply reduced down to a degrading thumbnail? Thanks a lot
Did you ever get an answer to your question, or figure it out? I am new to WP and I am having the same issue you described. I see my image fine on one of my computers, but it appears as a thumbnail on my other computer.Do you know how to fix this? Thanks a lot.
I moved wp to a new folder. now my images dont show up in posts… how do I fix this? images are in the library but not showing.
Hi, what about this issue: howo to make text wrap around images also in the RSS feed? in feed readers, the text comes below the image – how to fix that? cheers
Hi, very helpful article.
However, I am trying to see if there is a way to fix the alt text from getting cut off when the image is clicked on and pops up. The text below the image in the lightbox pop-up is the alt text, but if it is too long, it will not text wrap. It is in the Customizr theme.
Is there anything I can do about this? Thanks!
I keep getting an error that my images cannot resized when using the cropping option. How do I fix that?