Why Bulk Upload WordPress Media Files Using FTP

The default WordPress media uploader allows you to upload multiple files at once. You can do so by clicking on the ‘Add Media’ button while writing posts or by visiting Media » Add New page.

You can select multiple photos, images, audio, and even video files to upload and WordPress will do the rest.

However, this method may not work sometimes. You may see a maximum file upload size limit issues or the files may take forever to upload.

An easier alternative is to upload the files using FTP. However, WordPress doesn’t recognize files uploaded via FTP, and it will not show them inside admin area.

Luckily, there’s a way around that. Let’s take a look at how to easily bulk upload WordPress media files using FTP, and how to make them available inside WordPress.

Bulk Uploading Media Files in WordPress via FTP

First, you need to connect to your WordPress site using a FTP client. If you haven’t done this before, then see our guide on how to upload files to your WordPress site via FTP.

Once you are connected to your website via FTP, go to /wp-content/uploads/ folder.

Inside the uploads folder, you will see folders for years and months. That’s how WordPress stores media files by default. You can upload your media files to the current year and current month folder.

If it doesn’t exist, then you can create it. For example, 2018 for current year and inside that folder you can create a new folder 01 for the month of January.

Uploading your files may take a while depending on file size and your internet speed.

Once you have uploaded all your images, audio, video, or any other media files supported by WordPress, you are ready to import them into WordPress.

Making Your FTP Media Uploads Visible in WordPress

Even though you have uploaded the files to your website’s server, WordPress doesn’t automatically recognize them.

When you upload a file using the default WordPress media uploader, WordPress saves the file information inside the database. It then displays those files by fetching the information from your WordPress database.

Since these files were not uploaded via media uploader, WordPress does not have them stored in the database.

Let’s fix this.

First thing you will need to do is install and activate the Media from FTP plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit Media from FTP » Search & Register page. By default, the plugin will look into /wp-content/uploads/ folder and display all the media files it finds inside it.

You can also browse folders by clicking on the /wp-content/uploads/ drop down menu. It allows you to sort files by type or by extension.

Once you have located the files you uploaded using FTP, simply click the checkbox next to them and then click on the ‘Update Media’ button.

The plugin will start registering your imported media into the WordPress media library. You will see the progress on the screen as it goes through each file.

Once it is finished, you can visit Media » Library page to see all your imported files.

You can now go ahead and add these images, audio, and other media files to your WordPress posts and pages.

We hope this article helped you learn how to easily bulk upload WordPress media files using FTP. You may also want to see our guide on how to optimize images in WordPress for better speed and performance.

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