I know that improving the way CP handles media was something most people wanted when CP was born and it appears that it is pretty difficult.
I am working on moving a 25+ year old HTML CMS site to CP. Part of the content that needs managing is the media, I have been struggling to figure out a way to “NOT” let CP stick all the media in one folder or a bunch of stupidly named folders. I have looked at and tried dozens of plugins and I think I found one that seems to work.
“Media Library Folders by MaxFoundry” it may have been one of the first I tried and looked, at first glance, too" heavy"? or too invasive? I don’t usually go for plugins that are up-selling too much.
Before installing this plugin, I had already used wp-config to define uploads to a folder in the root directory and unchecked “Organize my uploads into month- and year-based folders”
My only question for the community is I guess, is, Is there a possible downside to this plugin? It looks like it only works on the back end, I assume that it writes to the database. When I disable it, everything seems to still function. It doesn’t seem to affect page load speed.
Has anyone had any experience, good or bad, with this plugin?
I have used it. It works fine, and it won’t cause any problems if you later deactivate or delete it because the folders it appears to create are virtual only.
If you want those folders to actually be created on the server (for FTP purposes), as I prefer, then you’ll need custom code (which is why I don’t use that plugin now).
I am so glad you found my question, I thought I had seen you talking about this issue somewhere. And it is good to hear that there shouldn’t be any trouble with this thing!
I wonder if maybe you haven’t tried the plugin in awhile, and I wonder if I tried an older version originally. I am using the newest version now and it looks like they are real folders. I don’t know if I would try to sell it to a non-technical user, but I am able to make it work for my purpose, and I am excited to add it to some other sites that I maintain and that I am the only person adding content on.
I started by moving the existing media folders on my server (via cpanel file manager) to my wp-config defined “media” folder, as sub-folders, and then used the plugin’s “sync” feature (I am not using pro) and the plugin added all the media in those folders to CP-media, like thus: domain.com/media/subfolder/image.jpg.
Soon I had everything jacked up so I deactivated the plugin and arranged the folders better including moving all the strays out of wp-content/upload/2022/08, then I used the “reset” that comes with the plugin, and started over.
Now I can add media either via the plugin’s interface to the chosen folder OR thru my servers file manager and use “sync” again.
After your comment, I tested and added a new sub-folder via the plugin interface, then dragged and dropped a media file into it from my desktop. It now shows up in CP-media and on the server in the new sub-folder that the plugin created.
It seems to be working better than I thought yesterday. The only pro features I have noticed that would be nice would be: to upload from the post edit window via “add Media” and to categorize media, but since the media is in real folders I guess I don’t even need categories anymore.
Just giving it a try. All good so far, it is even able to access all the files in image folders that were created by “Media file Manager”.
I would prefer the Media file Manager, for ease of use, but as it no longer supported and has a security warning,
Yes they are real folders accessable via ftp or control panel.
Media file management is seperate from uploading to posts or page.
Upload image to page/post as usual then publish. Next go to “Media Library Folders” and move image where you want to store it. The image url in the post is automatically updated.
I have a couple of sites with lots of images for each product this make it much easier to keep track of everything.
Extra bonus if an image needs some editing, increased compression for jpeg for example, use ftp or cpanel, download image optimise and put back. As long as you keep suffix the same cp/wp will never notice. warning only effects main image not thumbnail etc. they need to be done individually
That is great, I am converting a 6 year old media heavy site to Classicpress and trying to rearrange all the existing media into new organized folders, I will have to try moving them that way!
