Benjamin Bode

WordPress automatically creates multiple copies of every image you upload in different sizes (thumbnail, medium, large, and more). Over time, this wastes a significant amount of disk space, especially on large sites with thousands of images.
Imadero scans your media library, finds all auto-generated thumbnails, and removes them safely. It also updates all references in your posts, pages, and metadata to use the original image instead.
<h4>Features</h4>
<ul>
<li>Scan your media library to find all auto-generated thumbnails</li>
<li>Preview how many files and how much disk space can be freed before deleting anything</li>
<li>Delete all thumbnails in batches (safe for large sites)</li>
<li>Rewrite all database references (posts, meta, options) to use the original image</li>
<li>Prevent WordPress from generating thumbnails on future uploads</li>
<li>Handles serialized data safely (works with Elementor, Divi, WPBakery, and other page builders)</li>
<li>Handles Gutenberg block attributes (sizeSlug, CSS classes)</li>
<li>Removes WordPress -scaled images and restores the original</li>
<li>Batch processing prevents timeouts on large installations</li>
<li>Works with WooCommerce product images</li>
</ul>
<h4>How It Works</h4>
<ol>
<li>Go to Tools > Imadero in your WordPress admin</li>
<li>Click Start Scan to find all auto-generated thumbnails</li>
<li>Review the results: number of thumbnails and disk space used</li>
<li>Click Delete Thumbnails to remove them and update database references</li>
<li>Optionally enable Disable automatic thumbnail generation to prevent future thumbnails</li>
</ol>
<h4>Important Notes</h4>
<ul>
<li>Always create a backup before running the cleanup</li>
<li>The deletion process cannot be undone</li>
<li>WordPress will automatically fall back to the original image where thumbnails were used</li>
<li>The plugin works per site on Multisite installations</li>
</ul>

Imadero

Remove auto-generated image thumbnails to free up disk space and keep your media library clean.

Alex Mills

Regenerate Thumbnails allows you to regenerate all thumbnail sizes for one or more images that have been uploaded to your Media Library.
This is useful for situations such as:
<ul>
<li>A new thumbnail size has been added and you want past uploads to have a thumbnail in that size.</li>
<li>You’ve changed the dimensions of an existing thumbnail size, for example via Settings â Media.</li>
<li>You’ve switched to a new WordPress theme that uses featured images of a different size.</li>
</ul>
It also offers the ability to delete old, unused thumbnails in order to free up server space.
<h4>In Memory of Alex Mills</h4>
In February 2019 Alex Mills, the author of this plugin, <a href="https://alex.blog/2019/02/27/from-alexs-family/" rel="nofollow ugc">passed away</a>. He leaves behind a number of plugins which will be maintained by Automattic and members of the WordPress community. If this plugin is useful to you please consider donating to the Oregon Health and Science University. You can find more information <a href="https://alex.blog/2019/03/13/in-memory-of-alex-donation-link-update/" rel="nofollow ugc">here</a>.
<h4>Alternatives</h4>
WP-CLI
If you have command line access to your server, I highly recommend using <a href="https://wp-cli.org/" rel="nofollow ugc">WP-CLI</a> instead of this plugin as it’s faster (no HTTP requests overhead) and can be run inside of a <code>screen</code> for those with many thumbnails. For details, see the documentation of its <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/cli/commands/media/regenerate/" rel="nofollow ugc"><code>media regenerate</code> command</a>.
Jetpack’s Photon Module
<a href="https://jetpack.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Jetpack</a> is a plugin by Automattic, makers of WordPress.com. It gives your self-hosted WordPress site some of the functionality that is available to WordPress.com-hosted sites.
<a href="https://jetpack.com/support/photon/" rel="nofollow ugc">The Photon module</a> makes the images on your site be served from WordPress.com’s global content delivery network (CDN) which should speed up the loading of images. Importantly though it can create thumbnails on the fly which means you’ll never need to use this plugin.
I personally use Photon on my own website.
Disclaimer: I work for Automattic but I would recommend Photon even if I didn’t.
<h4>Need Help? Found A Bug? Want To Contribute Code?</h4>
Support for this plugin is provided via the <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/regenerate-thumbnails" rel="ugc">WordPress.org forums</a>.
The source code for this plugin is available on <a href="https://github.com/automattic/regenerate-thumbnails" rel="nofollow ugc">GitHub</a>.

Regenerate Thumbnails

I'm a longtime WP dev and if you need to regenerate thumbnails its the way to go.

I appreciate the fact its free, this is what makes WP great

5 Stars


I can't even remember for how long I've been using this plugin from time to time... Miss you Alex... I'm sure you're smiling from up above 3> 


Thanks, Alex...

Regenerate the thumbnails for one or more of your image uploads. Useful when changing their sizes or your theme.

Imadero vs Regenerate Thumbnails