5 Methods to Delete WordPress Thumbnails_Batch Cleanup of Unused Images

When a secure WordPress website has been running for a period of time, especially if there are many article images, many thumbnail images will be generated in your website's uploads folder. These thumbnail images are useless for our website, so if youdisable thumbnail generationright after installing the website, you won't be bothered by this issue. Below, we'll teach you how tobatch delete WordPress thumbnail files。 Note: Back up before deleting images to avoid mistakes.

Use Plugin for Batch Deletion

WordPress has a rich plugin ecosystem, but there aren't many plugins specifically for batch deleting thumbnails. Naibabiji tested all the ones available on the market, and only the following 3 remained.

DNUI

DNUIThis plugin is the most frequently mentioned one in online search resultsfor batch deleting WordPress thumbnails. However, in actual testing,Naibabijiit was found that DNUI's user experience is not good. It can only scan images from the most recent month. On the test site, there were thumbnails from 2017 and 2018 that DNUI could not scan. But the files it did scan can be deleted in batches.Download Link

Image Cleanup

Image CleanupAlthough this WP plugin showed an error alert at the top during testing, it did not affect its functionality. Image Cleanup wasthe only plugin that could completely scan all thumbnail imagesduring Naibabiji's testing for batch deleting WP thumbnails. If you want to use a plugin for deletion, this is a good choice.Download Link

Media Cleaner

Media Cleaner is the newest plugin among those tested, so its compatibility with WordPress is not an issue. However, testing revealed that this plugin could not scan images from previous folders.Download Link

Force Regenerate Thumbnails

This plugin forces the regeneration of thumbnails, allowing you to delete all old image sizes and truly regenerate thumbnails for image attachments.Download Link  

Manual Batch Deletion

Manual batch deletion is a more reliable method, divided into FTP deletion and SSH command batch deletion. The software needed for this method:#WebsiteBuilding# Free VPS management software Xshell6/Xftp6 Chinese version

Delete using FTP software

Use FTP software (e.g., Xftp) to connect to the server, navigate to your image folder, batch select images with filenames ending in „-numberxnumber“, then right-click and choose delete. This method is time-consuming and labor-intensive, so it is not highly recommended.

Batch delete using SSH commands

This method is the fastest, but if the images inserted in your posts are thumbnails and not the original images, do not use this method. This method is only suitable forLinux VPS servers. If you are on shared hosting, this operation is not possible.Use Xshell to connect to the server, then switch to the uploads folder and execute the following commands:

find . -name '*-[0-9][0-9]x[0-9][0-9]*'
和
find . -name '*-[0-9][0-9][0-9]x[0-9][0-9][0-9]*'

The two commands above are for finding files whose names contain „-numbernumberxnumbernumber“ and „-numbernumbernumberxnumbernumbernumber“. This is because WordPress thumbnail naming follows this format, for example, -75x75.jpg and -300x193.png as shown in the image above. After finding them and confirming these files can be deleted, use the following command to delete them:

find . -name '*-[0-9][0-9]x[0-9][0-9]*' -exec rm -f {} \;
和 
find . -name '*-[0-9][0-9][0-9]x[0-9][0-9][0-9]*' -exec rm -f {} \;

Another command found online that can utilize options-regexto use regular expressions:

find . -regex '\./[0-9]+_[0-9]+\.zip'

If you need to delete the found files, usexargs(Make sure before deleting):

find . -regex '\./[0-9]+_[0-9]+\.zip'|xargs rm -f

If you not only want to delete but also get the count of deletions, you can do this:

find . -regex '\./[0-9]+_[0-9]+\.zip'|tee >(wc -l 1>&2)|xargs rm -f

Alright, the several methods introduced above can help youbatch delete WordPress thumbnails. Finally, a reminder again: please back up before operation to avoid deleting useful files.