Connor Bulmer

<p><strong>AI Auto Alt Text Generator</strong> is a lightweight, privacy-conscious plugin that uses OpenAI’s GPT-4o mini vision model to create meaningful, screen-reader-friendly alt text and SEO-friendly titles for your images. Whether you add a single image, bulk-process your library, or just want a one-click fix in the Media Library, the plugin handles it all – no manual effort required.</p>
<p>This solution is far cheaper than many alternatives because it cuts out the middle-person. You’ll just need to bring your own OpenAI API key.</p>
<h3>✨ Key features</h3>
<ul>
<li><strong>Automatic alt text on upload</strong> – set-and-forget accessibility.</li>
<li><strong>Optional automatic image titles</strong> – improve SEO with descriptive titles.</li>
<li><strong>One-click manual generation</strong> – “Generate Alt Text & Title” button in the Media Library.</li>
<li><strong>Bulk update tool</strong> – batch-process existing images (five at a time) with a configurable pause between batches.</li>
<li><strong>Prompt fine-tuning</strong> – supply site-wide context and optionally include the image file name.</li>
<li><strong>Image size & detail control</strong> – choose the resolution and level of visual detail sent.</li>
<li><strong>No extra servers</strong> – data flows only between your site and OpenAI; nothing is stored off-site.</li>
<li><strong>Multilingual output</strong> – choose English (UK), English (US) or other popular languages. (English US is the default.)</li>
</ul>
<h3>🧭 Where to find the bulk tool</h3>
<ul>
<li><strong>Tools <span aria-hidden="true" class="wp-exclude-emoji">→</span> Bulk Alt Text Update</strong></li>
<li><strong>Media <span aria-hidden="true" class="wp-exclude-emoji">→</span> Bulk Alt Text Update</strong> (shortcut that redirects to the Tools page)</li>
<li><strong>Settings <span aria-hidden="true" class="wp-exclude-emoji">→</span> Alt Text Generator</strong> includes a button linking straight to the bulk page</li>
</ul>
<h3>🧠 How it works</h3>
<ol>
<li>When an image is uploaded (or manually chosen), the plugin creates a temporary public URL for that image.</li>
<li>It sends the image – plus optional context such as the parent post title, your custom site context and the file name – to OpenAI’s <em>gpt-4o-mini</em> vision model.</li>
<li>GPT-4o returns a concise description.
<ul>
<li>Alt text is stored in WordPress’ native <code>_wp_attachment_image_alt</code> field.  </li>
<li>(Optional) The returned title is stored as the attachment post title.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Nothing is cached or stored on OpenAI’s side; only the final strings live in your database.</li>
</ol>
<h3>Settings overview</h3>
<ul>
<li><strong>OpenAI API Key</strong> – Required to connect to GPT-4o.  </li>
<li><strong>Image Size to Send</strong> – Thumbnail, Medium, Large, or Full.  </li>
<li><strong>Image Detail Quality</strong> – ‘Low’ or ‘High’.  </li>
<li><strong>Site Context</strong> – Optional free-form prompt guidance (brand voice, niche, etc.).  </li>
<li><strong>Send Image File Name</strong> – Include file name in the prompt for extra context.  </li>
<li><strong>Automatically Generate Title</strong> – Add descriptive titles alongside alt text.  </li>
<li><strong>Use full context for image titles</strong> – When enabled, title generation includes site context and file name (uses more tokens).  </li>
<li><strong>Bulk optimiser delay (seconds)</strong> – Pause between five-image batches during bulk runs.  </li>
<li><strong>Output Language</strong> – Default English (US). Choose English (UK) for British spellings or another popular language; outputs (alt text and titles) will be generated in the selected language.</li>
</ul>
<h3>External services</h3>
<p>This plugin connects to the <strong>OpenAI API</strong> to generate alt text and (optionally) image titles.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Endpoint:</strong> <code>https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions</code>  </li>
<li><strong>When called:</strong>
<ul>
<li>On image upload (automatic)  </li>
<li>Via “Generate Alt Text & Title” button in Media Library (manual)  </li>
<li>Via <strong>Tools <span aria-hidden="true" class="wp-exclude-emoji">→</span> Bulk Alt Text Update</strong> (bulk)  </li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Data sent:</strong> image URL, optional file name, optional site context, optional parent post title  </li>
<li><strong>Terms:</strong> <a href="https://openai.com/policies/terms-of-use" rel="nofollow ugc">https://openai.com/policies/terms-of-use</a>  </li>
<li><strong>Privacy:</strong> <a href="https://openai.com/policies/privacy-policy" rel="nofollow ugc">https://openai.com/policies/privacy-policy</a></li>
</ul>


AI Auto Alt Text Generator

Automatically generates alt text and image titles for your WordPress media uploads with GPT-4o mini, improving accessibility and SEO.

Valerio Monti

<p>This plugin implements the automatic creation of alt text for images uploaded to the media library. The alt text is generated at the time of uploading the image and it is also possible to generate the alt text for images already present in the media library.</p>
<p>To generate the alt text, you can choose to use the artificial intelligence of OpenAI or Azure, or decide if you simply want to copy the title of the article where the image is uploaded or the name of the image.</p>
<p>Clearly, using artificial intelligence will allow for a more accurate and useful alt texts.</p>
<h3>Features</h3>
<p>This plugin allows you to generate alt texts in the following ways:<br />
– using Openai APIs (GPT-4o, GPT-4o Mini, o1 Mini)<br />
– using Anthropic Claude API<br />
– using Azure APIs for computational vision;<br />
– recovering the title of the image<br />
– recovering the title of the article in which the image is uploaded</p>
<h4>Getting Started</h4>
<p>After installing the plugin, click on the ‘Auto Alt Text’ menu item.</p>
<h3>Choice of Generation Method</h3>
<p>Select the Generation Method you prefer</p>
<h3>OpenAI’s APIs</h3>
<p>In your OpenAI account, retrieve the following data to enter on the options page:<br />
– API Key</p>
<p>Choose the model you want to use for generating the alt text.<br />
Enter a prompt for generating the alt text according to your needs.</p>
<h3>Claude Anthropic’s APIs</h3>
<p>In your Anthropic account, retrieve the following data to enter on the options page:<br />
– API Key</p>
<p>Choose the model you want to use for generating the alt text.<br />
Enter a prompt for generating the alt text according to your needs.</p>
<h3>Azure’s APIs</h3>
<p>On your Azure account, create a Computer Vision instance and retrieve the following data to enter on the options page:<br />
– Computer Vision API Key<br />
– Computer Vision Endpoint</p>
<p>If you want to generate an alt text in English, save the options without filling in any other fields.</p>
<p>If you want to generate an alt text in a different language, on your Azure account, create a Translator instance and retrieve the following data to enter on the options page:<br />
– Translator Instance API Key<br />
– Translator Instance Endpoint<br />
– Translator Instance Region</p>
<p>After entering this data, save the options.</p>
<p>Select the desired language and save the options again.</p>
<h3>Title of the article</h3>
<p>For this generation method, there are no options to set as the alt text will be generated by copying the title of the article in which the image is uploaded.</p>
<p>In case the article is not uploaded as an attachment of an article, the “Title of the attachment” method will be used as a fallback.</p>
<h3>Title of the attachment</h3>
<p>For this generation method, there are no options to set as the alt text will be generated by copying the title of the image.</p>
<h3>Functioning</h3>
<p>Once the plugin is configured, each time an image is uploaded to the media library, an alt text will be automatically set based on the selected generation method.</p>
<p>For images already in the media library, you can create bulk alt texts. Open the Media Library in the “list” view, select the images for which to generate the alt text, and choose the “Generate alt text” bulk action. (Depending on the number of images chosen and their weight, this may take some time.)</p>
<p>You can also generate the alt text of a single image directly from the media library. Open the Media Library in “grid” mode, choose the image for which to generate the alt text, and click the “Generate alt text” button. In no time the alt text field will be overwritten by the generated description.</p>
<p><strong>Notice</strong>: If you choose one of the methods that involves the use of external APIs, the upload times for images in the media library might increase because it requires sending a request to the APIs, waiting for the external server to process, and waiting for a response.</p>
<h3>Logging</h3>
<p>If the generation of the alt text via AI is set, in case of errors, to avoid blocking the editorial work, the image is loaded anyway but without the alt text being compiled.</p>
<p>When a call to the Azure or OpenAI API fails, a record containing the error message is saved in a custom database table.<br />
In this case, the cause of the error can be seen on the Auto Alt Text -> Error log page.</p>
<h3>External Services</h3>
<p>This plugin uses the following external services alternatively:</p>
<h3>OpenAI</h3>
<p>Selecting the generation method “OpenAI’s APIs” will use the API services of <a href="https://openai.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">OpenAI</a>.</p>
<p>This plugin does not collect any information from your OpenAI account. The data transmitted to OpenAI mainly consists of the image files uploaded to your website and the specified prompt.</p>
<p>For accurate information on privacy and conditions of use, please consult the <a href="https://openai.com/policies/privacy-policy" rel="nofollow ugc">privacy policy</a> and <a href="https://openai.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">terms and conditions</a> directly on the official website. It is also advisable to check the costs and usage statistics of the API service on the OpenAI website.</p>
<h3>Anthropic Claude</h3>
<p>Selecting the generation method “Anthropic’s APIs” will use the API services of <a href="https://console.anthropic.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Anthropic</a>.</p>
<p>This plugin does not collect any information from your Anthropic Claude account. The data transmitted to Anthropic Claude mainly consists of the image files uploaded to your website and the specified prompt.</p>
<p>For accurate information on privacy and conditions of use, please consult the <a href="https://www.anthropic.com/legal/privacy" rel="nofollow ugc">privacy policy</a>, <a href="https://www.anthropic.com/legal/consumer-terms" rel="nofollow ugc">terms and conditions for consumers</a> and <a href="https://www.anthropic.com/legal/commercial-terms" rel="nofollow ugc">terms and conditions for commercial</a> directly on the official website. It is also advisable to check the costs and usage statistics of the API service on the Anthropic website.</p>
<h3>Azure</h3>
<p>Selecting the “Azure’s APIs” generation method will use the API services of <a href="https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/" rel="nofollow ugc">Microsoft Azure</a>.</p>
<p>This plugin does not collect any information from your Azure account. The data transmitted to Azure consists mainly of image files uploaded to your website.</p>
<p>For accurate information on privacy and conditions of use, please directly consult the <a href="https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement" rel="nofollow ugc">privacy policy</a> and <a href="https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/support/legal/" rel="nofollow ugc">terms and conditions</a> on the official website. It is also advisable to check the costs and usage statistics of the API service on the Microsoft Azure’s website.</p>
<h3>Encryption Constants</h3>
<p>We <strong>strongly recommend</strong> defining the new plugin-specific constants in your <code>wp-config.php</code>:</p>
<pre><code>define( 'AAT_ENCRYPTION_KEY',  'a_random_string_of_at_least_64_characters' );
define( 'AAT_ENCRYPTION_SALT', 'another_random_string_of_at_least_64_characters' );
</code></pre>
<p>You will find these two define(…) lines already generated for you on the Auto Alt Text » Options page – simply copy & paste them before the <code>/* That's all, stop editing! Happy publishing. */</code> line in your <code>wp-config.php</code>.</p>
<p>If you choose not to add them, the plugin will continue to work normally, but it will fall back to using your WordPress <code>LOGGED_IN_KEY</code> / <code>LOGGED_IN_SALT</code>, which may break if those salts are ever changed.</p>
<h3>Disclaimer</h3>
<p>Auto Alt Text is a plugin that helps users automatically generate Alt Texts of their images using AI services such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Microsoft Azure.<br />
Users need their own API key and must follow the rules set by the AI service they choose.</p>
<p>By using Auto Alt Text, users agree to watch and manage AI-made content and address any issues or misuse.</p>
<p>AI Engine developer and related parties are not responsible for any problems or losses caused by the use of the plugin or AI-generated content.</p>


Auto Alt Text

This plugin allows you to automatically generate an Alt Text for images uploaded into the media library via AI.

AI Auto Alt Text Generator vs Auto Alt Text