Get Rid of 39+ Common Image Issues in WordPress Once and All

Struggling with common WordPress image errors and issues? Keep reading.

Who doesn’t like interactive content? Images help to make your content more interactive and engaging. WordPress by default comes with the necessary image uploading and editing facility

In WordPress, you might be having some image issues like gallery images not showing, themes not showing images, featured images not working, images not loading in WordPress theme – and more.

We are going to cover most WordPress image issues and how to fix them in this article.

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Common WordPress Image Errors

Here are the most common WordPress image errors and their solutions.

1. How To Upload Images In WordPress?

Uploading new images to WordPress is easy. There are a couple of ways to do that.

1.1 Drag and Drop Images to Upload

The easiest way to upload images is to drag and drop the image you want to upload in the WordPress editor.

WordPress will automatically upload and add the new image to your WordPress post.

1.2 Upload images via Add Media

If you look above your WordPress editor, you will find there is an option naming “Add Media” on top.

Get Rid of 39+ Common Image Issues in WordPress Once and For All 8

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This will give you the option to select images to upload. You can select your images and then click Insert into post to insert the new image to your WordPress post.

2. How to Add Caption below Images in WordPress?

WordPress has built-in support for adding a caption for images. After uploading an image, WordPress media uploader gives you the option to add image title, description, and caption.

3. How to Align Image to the Left or Right in WordPress?

Many popular websites use images with text wrapped around them. Text wrapping image is done by using the align feature of WordPress. Using images with text wrapped is an excellent way to make your website more engaging.

You can select your preferred image alignment when uploading an image and before inserting it into your post.

4. How to Fix Featured Images Not Showing in WordPress?

WordPress featured images not working is a common WordPress image issue. It usually happens when you switch your theme. Solving featured images is pretty easy all you need to do is to install a featured image plugin.

How to Regenerate Thumbnails or New Image Sizes in WordPress

Check our tutorial on How to regenerate thumbnail and featured images where we have discussed in-length how to restore your images when you switch to a new theme. As WordPress featured image size differs from theme to theme, it is a good idea to regenerate your featured images and thumbnails after switching your theme.

You can use any of the plugins mentioned in the blog post to fix your featured images in WordPress.

5. How to Fix WordPress Featured Image Not Showing on Homepage?’

Are your Wordpress homepage images not showing? If you want to show your feature images on your homepage, then there should be a specific theme setting on your theme. Whether featured images will be displayed on homepage or not is decided by the theme. Usually, most WordPress themes have the featured image settings tucked under in the theme settings menu.

Navigate to Appearance >> Customize to explore your theme settings.

fix wordpress featured image not showing on homepage

If your theme supports featured images, you should be able to access it from Appearance>>Customize.

If featured images are already turned on for the homepage from theme settings, and it is still not showing up, then you can disable and enable the settings. Make sure you clear your cache. Then try reloading the website.

You should be able to see featured images appearing correctly on your homepage.

6. How to Fix Duplicate Featured Images in WordPress

Duplicate images usually appear to your editor when you upload the same pictures twice in your WordPress post. The same mistake occurs when you upload the featured image again in your post.

You do not want to use the featured image again in your WordPress post. WordPress will automatically show the featured image on your homepage. If you use it inside your article, the image will appear twice.

7. Fix Image Too Large on WordPress

It might have happened to you when you are uploading an image and WordPress is giving you a notice that the image cannot be uploaded because it is too large. Well, that’s because WordPress sets a limit about how big your image sizes can be. The limit is set for your convenience.

The convention should be followed because Google likes pages that load fast, as we have discussed in our Top 10 Ways to Improve PageSpeed on WordPress Websites article.

Fix Image Too Large in WordPress

You can use an image resizer to resize your images before uploading on your WordPress website.
You could also use an image optimizing service like tinypng.org to optimize your images before uploading.
You can also use the default WordPress image editor to crop and resize images. Read below to know how to crop and resize images using WordPress.

8. WordPress Media Library Not Showing Images/Fix Blank Thumbnails in WordPress

WordPress media library not showing any images is an issue that webmasters face from time to time. You could also be facing no thumbnail previews in your WordPress media library. Some people find no images at all in media library although it shows the count of total photos.

Solving these type of issues can be tricky.

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It could happen for many reasons. You need to go through a series of basic troubleshooting steps to fix this issue.

Step 1

First, navigate to your WordPress Dashboard then Settings >> Media. Make sure the Organize my uploads into month- and year-based folders field is checked.

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This option organizes your uploaded images by month and year wise folders. If this doesn’t fix your media library issue, move to step 2.

Step 2

If still your images and thumbnails don’t show up, you have to change your WordPress upload folder’s permission.

change file permission uploads folder WordPress

Login to your cPanel and go to.wp-content/uploads Check the file permission of uploads folder. If the permission is anything besides 755, change the permission to 755.

Reload your media library to see if it’s fixed.

You can also do this from most of the FTP programs like FileZilla.

Here’s what the process looks like in Filezilla.

Step 3

If your images are still not showing up, try changing your permalink settings to the default and then revert to the original. Check our coverage on Best Permalink Structure for SEO in WordPress to know how to reset permalink settings.

Step 4

If none of the steps worked for you, try to regenerate thumbnails/featured images. Read our tutorial on how to regenerate thumbnails or featured images.

Any of the four steps should fix your issue. Make sure your file permission is appropriate as discussed in step 2.

Ultimate WordPress SEO Guide (15+ Proven Tips)

9. Fix Unable To Create Directory Error

Follow step 1 and step 2 of the previous section. You want to check Organize my uploads into month- and year-based folders field.

If this does not fix your issue, you need to fix your file permission for wp-content/uploads folder to 755

10. How to Organize Photos Into Columns And Rows?

You can organize your photos into columns and rows like a gallery to give your users a better experience.

You can create an image gallery by choosing the media uploader. Then select ‘Create gallery.’

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Now you will need to choose the images that will be displayed in the rows and columns. After choosing your images, then click ‘Insert gallery.’

Get Rid of 39+ Common Image Issues in WordPress Once and For All 14

You can also check out the gallery setting and choose how you want your gallery to be displayed before clicking Insert gallery. As soon as you click Insert gallery, the new an organized gallery with row and column will be added to your article

11. How to Add/Remove featured images in WordPress

On your WordPress article’s right-hand side, there should be a section named Featured Image. You can add featured image by clicking “Set featured image.” It will ask for the image location. Locate your featured image on your hard disk to set a featured image.

Removing Featured Image: You can remove featured images by using the same section. After adding a featured image, the option will offer to remove the existing featured.

12. How to Fix Mixed Content Error after Switching to HTTPS

If you are not using https, you are missing out. Even after switching to the https website, you might not still be seeing the green padlock icon on your browser.

This happens because the green icon only shows up when all your content is in HTTPS. However, even after switching your domain to HTTPS, the images usually use the old image path with HTTP. That is why you need to rewrite the images.

Use the Really Simple SSL plugin to automatically rewrite the URLs for old images
Use the Velvet Blues Update URLs plugin to manually execute a find and replace query to change “http://olddomain.com” to “https://newdomain.com”

Find Replace URL - Fix Mixed Content Error WordPress

13. How To Set Default WordPress Featured Image

If you want to set a default featured image for all of your WordPress posts, then you can use the default featured image plugin. The plugin lets you create a fallback image for all of your featured image. Hence, if you don’t use the featured image in any of your posts, the default image will be used.

Default featured image

One of the great benefits of using the plugin is the possible increase of engagement in social media. Images work better to get attention than just texts.

If you forgot to add featured image to any of your previous posts, the plugin would automatically show the fallback image in all of your latest social media sharing.

14. HTTP Error When Uploading Image To WordPress Media Library

Another most common WordPress image errors that you’ll encounter is the HTTP error when trying to upload new images to your Media Library:

This error is frustrating because it often seems random – that is, you can upload 10 different images and only one of them will return an HTTP error.

So what are the causes of HTTP error when uploading images to the WordPress Media Library?

Since there’s not a single cause, that means we can’t give you one single solution – but we can provide some common fixes.

1. Decrease Image Size

Though the WordPress HTTP error can appear when uploading any images, it’s most common with large images.

To minimize the chances of error, one of the easiest ways to fix this, resize your images before you upload them.

If you’re not sure how to resize your images, here are some free tools that can help you:

Resize Image – good for single images.
Batch Image Resizing Made Easy – good for resizing multiple images at once.

You can also compress your images to reduce file size by using one of these tools:

Compressor.io – good for single images.
Tinypng.com – good for single images.
Kraken.io – good for compressing multiple images at once.

2. Increase WordPress Memory Limit

One potential trigger for this error is that your site is hitting its memory limit.

This limit is usually set by your host. To avoid the limitation, you’ll need to contact your host and ask them to increase your PHP memory limit.

If your host allows it, you can also do this manually by following these instructions:

Go to the root folder and edit your wp-config.php file
Add the following code snippet above the

/* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */ line

_/** Increases memory limit */


define( 'WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M' );_

3. Temporary Workaround If You Need To Upload Images Right Now

This method isn’t a permanent solution, but if you absolutely need to upload images instantly and don’t have time to try and diagnose the issue, here’s a quick workaround:

Connect to your server via cPanel File Manager or FTP server
Upload image files to /wp-content/uploads/… folder
Install and activate the free Add From Server plugin
Go to Media > Add From Server in your WordPress dashboard
Follow the plugin’s interface to import the files that you uploaded

15. File Exceeds The upload_max_filesize Error

This error usually occurs when you try to upload a file that exceeds the maximum upload limit defined by WordPress and/or your server.

One of the easy solution is to simply decrease the size of your image by resizing or compressing it.

But if that does not work, you can try one of these three methods to increase your site’s upload limit:

1. .htaccess Method

Go to the root folder and edit your .htaccess file
Add the following code snippet

_### Increases the max filesize for uploads
php_value upload_max_filesize 64M
php_value post_max_size 64M
php_value max_execution_time 300
php_value max_input_time 300_

2. Php.ini Method

Edit the php.ini file in your root folder or create a new file called php.ini if it doesn’t already exist.
Add the following code snippet

_upload_max_filesize = 64M
post_max_size = 64M
max_execution_time = 300_

3. Functions.php Method

Edit the theme’s functions.php file by going to /wp-content/themes/**ACTIVE_THEME**/functions.php
Add the following code snippet

_@ini_set( 'upload_max_size' , '64M' );
@ini_set( 'post_max_size', '64M');
@ini_set( 'max_execution_time', '300' );_

16. Upside Down Or Flipped Images Error

Sometimes you may upload an image to WordPress that looks normal on your desktop computer. But as soon as you upload it, it’s flipped upside down or rotated wrong.

This is especially common when you try to upload photos that taken with an iOS device because iOS doesn’t properly transfer the EXIF data that’s needed to determine the image’s orientation.

To fix the error, you can use WordPress’ built-in image rotation feature by following these steps:

First, click on your desired image
Select Edit Image
Use the rotation buttons to change the image’s orientation
Now, click Save when finished

You can also install the free Fix Image Rotation plugin. This will automatically apply the proper orientation to any images that you upload.

17. Upload: Failed to Write File to Disk Error

If you’re facing the Upload: Failed to Write File to Disk Error, the most common cause is incorrect file permissions.

To fix this issue, you can follow the same instructions as the Unable To Create Directory Error.

18. Temporary Folder Missing Error While Uploading

In order to properly upload any media files, WordPress needs to be able to access the temporary folder that’s defined by the site’s PHP settings. If your PHP settings aren’t properly providing this information, WordPress will not be able to locate the folder and will throw this error as a result.

Here’s the solution. Just manually define the temporary folder:

Edit wp-config.php file
Add the following code snippet somewhere above the /* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */ line in your wp-config.php file

define('WP_TEMP_DIR', dirname(__FILE__) . '/wp-content/temp/');

If it doesn’t work, you have to contact your hosting provider.

19. Image Cannot Be Found. Make Sure The Path Is Correct And Image Exists Error

The “Image cannot be found. Make sure the path is correct and image exist” error commonly occurs when dealing with WordPress galleries.

The issue seems that images are linked to their attachment page, instead of the actual image URL.

To fix this issue, try to add an attribute to the gallery shortcode to make each image link to its actual file URL.

For example, if your original shortcode is:

[ my_gallery ]

Then add a parameter like so:

[ my_gallery link="file" ]

20. How To Change Default Image Sizes

Whenever you upload an image to WordPress, WordPress will automatically resize that image to certain preset dimensions.

If needed, you can manually go in and change these default image sizes.

In your WordPress dashboard, just go to Settings > Media and adjust the options as desired:

21. WordPress Featured Image Appearing Twice Error

Most WordPress themes automatically display featured images at the top of the post, so if you also add the same image to the top of the WordPress Editor, the featured image will appear twice.

To fix the issue, don’t use the featured image in the body of your post – only use the featured image option in the sidebar.

Here’s an example to illustrate the concept:

WordPress Image Error Featured Image Twice

22. Regenerate WordPress Thumbnails To Fix Distorted Images

If you recently changed WordPress themes or manually changed your thumbnail dimensions, you might have face that all of your existing images look distorted.

Usually, WordPress automatically creates different sizes for each image that you upload. These sizes are defined by your theme, so if you change themes your old image sizes might not look right anymore.

To fix this issue, you have to force WordPress to regenerate thumbnails. And to do so, you can use the popular and free Regenerate Thumbnails plugin.

Once you install and activate the plugin, just go to Tools > Regen. Thumbnails to start the process:

Regenerate WordPress Thumbnails To Fix Distorted Images

23. Change Image That Appears On Facebook For WordPress Site

Whenever you or your visitors share your website on Facebook, Facebook will try to automatically import a relevant picture to go along with the link.

If you want to control this image, you have to use a metadata called Facebook Open Graph Meta Tags. These tags are easily accessible through WordPress plugins.

If you’re using the Yoast SEO plugin, you can use the Social tab of the meta box to choose the image that appears on Facebook:

24. Require Featured Image For WordPress Posts

If your theme requires featured images to display posts correctly, you might want to require featured images for your posts to ensure that you don’t accidentally publish a post without a featured image.

To require a featured image for all WordPress posts, you can use the free Require Featured Image plugin. Once you install and activate the plugin, it starts working right away.

25. Resize WordPress Images

WordPress has a built-in tool to resize images that you’ve already uploaded directly from your dashboard. To access it:

Click on your desired image in your Media Library

Choose Edit Image

Use the SCALE IMAGE box to enter new dimensions

Now, click Scale to complete the process

26. Crop WordPress Images

If you want to crop an image, WordPress also includes a crop feature. To access it:

Click on your desired image in the Media Library

Choose Edit Image

Click on the image preview and drag your mouse to select the area you want to crop
Click the crop button to generate a new preview

Click Save to finalize your crop.

27. Organize WordPress Images Into Folders

If you want to organize your WordPress Media Library using actual folders, you can use a plugin called WordPress Media Library Folders to solve the issue.

28. WordPress Featured Image Box Disappeared Error

Sometimes, you might have faced that your WordPress featured image box disappeared. This occurs when you accidentally disable its display.

To get the featured image box back, just click on Screen Options in the top-right of your screen:

Just make sure the box for Featured Image is checked:

29. WordPress Changed Image But Changes Aren’t Showing Error

If you changed an image in the WordPress dashboard but aren’t displaying on the live version of your site, the most likely reason is the caching issue.

You can either:

Manually reset the cache or,
Wait a few hours for the cache to refresh by itself

30. Change Location Of WordPress Uploads Folder

By default, WordPress uploads all of your media files to the …/wp-content/uploads/… folder and then organizes them into subfolders by date.

You can change the location of this folder by editing your wp-config.php file. Here’s how:

Edit your wp-config.php file
Find the line that says require_once(ABSPATH.’wp-settings.php’);
Add the following code snippet immediately below that line

define( 'UPLOADS', 'wp-content/'.'my-images' );

Where my-images is the name of your desired folder.

If you want to store uploads outside of the wp-content folder, you can also use something like this:

define( 'UPLOADS', ''.'my-images' );

In the above snippet, your uploaded files would be stored at yoursite.com/my-images/filename.jpg.

WordPress will still organize the images into folders by year/month in the new folder. If you want to change that, you can disable this functionality by going to Settings > Media and unchecking the box for Organize my uploads into month- and year-based folders:

Organize my uploads into month- and year-based folders

31. Create Image Galleries On WordPress

WordPress includes a built-in WordPress Gallery function that allows you to create galleries from the images that you upload.

To get started, click on Add New Post and then Add Media:

Then, go to the Create Gallery tab. Here, you can either upload new files or select multiple existing images to use in your gallery.

Once you’ve selected the images that you want, click Create a new gallery to continue.

On the next screen, you can:

Choose what each image links to or remove links
Select how many columns to use in your gallery
Rearrange the image order via drag and drop or choose to randomize the order
Choose the default size for your gallery items
Add captions to each image in the gallery

32. Add A Favicon Image To WordPress

A favicon is a small image that appears in a web browser tab, as well as some other areas:

To add a favicon to your WordPress site:

Go to Appearance > Customize in your WordPress dashboard sidebar
Choose the Site Identity option in the WordPress Customizer sidebar
Use the Site Icon functionality to upload your favicon

33. Upload WordPress Images Via FTP

If you want to upload files to the WordPress Media Library via FTP server, you’ll have to complete two steps:

Actually upload the files.
Register the files to the WordPress Media Library.

To do that:

Connect to your server via cPanel File Manager or FTP server
Upload image files to …/wp-content/uploads/… folder
Install and activate the free Add From Server plugin
Go to Media > Add From Server in your WordPress dashboard
Follow the plugin’s interface to import the files that you uploaded

Once you’ve imported the images with Add From Server, you can use them like any other images.

34. Add a Header Image in WordPress

A header image in WordPress is a theme feature. Many WordPress free and paid themes come with support for the header image.

You can upload your own custom header image from the Appearance > Customize. WordPress will let you know the size requirements for your header image.

If you upload an image of the exact size, then it will be used as it is.

35. Add a Background Image in WordPress

Like the custom header image, custom background image is also a WordPress theme feature. Many WordPress free and premium themes come with support for custom background images.

Go to Appearance > Customize to launch the theme customizer. If you can see the Background Image option, then it is sure that your theme has support for custom backgrounds.

Simply upload an image from your computer or choose any image from the media library. Once you have chosen the image you will be able to see the image preview and other background image options.

36. Find Free Images for Your WordPress Blog Posts

Images can make your articles extraordinary. However, you must respect copyright policy and try to find images that you are legally allowed to use.

There are many websites where you can find free images.

37. Tag Images in WordPress

If you run a photography website, then you will notice that WordPress does not allow you to sort photos and images.

If you would tag images then your friends and followers can easily find the images.

Fortunately, there are some great plugins that allow you to do that easily.

For a photography related blog, you can use Envira Gallery’s Tags addon.

Envira Gallery plugin allows you to create beautiful, mobile-ready, photo galleries in WordPress. Using tags, your site visitors can easily filter and sort photos without even reloading a page.

38. Import External Images in WordPress

This question may often come up when you are migrating your site to WordPress. Some images on your website may still be located at older location.

Users importing blogs from Blogger, Squarespace, or WordPress.com may face this sort of problem.

To solve this issue, all you have to install and activate the Import External Images plugin.

It will check your posts for external images and show all of them to correct places. You can then easily import all those images with the click of a button.

39. Remove the Default Image Link in WordPress

By default, WordPress adds a link to the original image file.

You can also set default link to ‘none’ to remove the link, but doing it manually each time you upload an image is annoying.

You can also stop WordPress from adding a link by adding this code in your theme’s functions.php file.

functionwpb_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);

Wrapping up on WordPress Images

If you are still here with us, thanks for reading. we hope you have solved your WordPress image issue from the article. If you haven’t been able to solve your issue regarding images in WordPress, feel free to leave a comment in the comment box below.

You can also try to spice up your featured images by using great free stock images. We often get asked at our Twitter and Facebook channels about how to find the best royalty-free images to use in their posts.

You can go through the following websites for free stock images. You can use these free stock images in your WordPress posts to make your content more engaging.

4 Comments

Darius Straksas • September 10, 2019 at 10:41 pm

I expected that dealing with images will be the easy part while making a website but unfortunately, it is not. I do photos and promote my business through two pages momentstopper.com and https:// afoto4u com/ and managing images makes me nuts. I don’t think I figured out 100% clear way how to do it. Can anyone tell, how big is the influence to SEO of oversize images? I am a photographer. The photos have to look nice! I thought maybe you want to share with the general public on some tips preserving the image quality. Why if I choose 150×150 and 300×300 doesn’t just shrink teh photo but it makes it look really ugly. If I choose the exact dimension files they do not look sharp. It seams that the only way for photos to look nice to keep them over sized. Thanks!

Tanmoy Biswas • December 3, 2020 at 1:59 am

HI, My need help, recently my WordPress website all post images not showing. the image is broken. here website: https:// wcblogs com/ please give me the best suggestion. How can I fix it?

Thanks in advance

Ron • June 1, 2021 at 11:29 pm

39 so-called “common” image problems in WordPress and you couldn’t come up with the one that has plagued too many of us for over a decade now. I still have to download a special plugin to solve it and some things like Memberpress Courses circumvents the Wordpress coding to cause the problem parallel to the Wordpress site working right with the plugin. What am I talking about? IMAGE COMPRESSION!!!!!!!!! I hate compressed images that I did not compress, because the decisions are always wrong about how much to compress them. They always look like crap!.

Now here you are pretending to have gathered the top 39. What a failure. Half of those you listed have never been a problem in the 100’s of sites I’ve built.

Shams Sumon • June 6, 2021 at 9:06 pm

Thanks for your feedback.

We’ll think about the point that you’ve addressed.

Get Rid of 39+ Common Image Issues in WordPress Once and For All