WPCreatix

Media Sweep: The Ultimate WordPress Media Library Cleaner
Media Sweep is a powerful WordPress plugin designed to help you reclaim valuable server space by identifying and safely removing unused media files from your WordPress site. Whether you’re dealing with orphaned attachments, forgotten uploads, or files left behind by themes and plugins, Media Sweep provides a comprehensive solution to keep your media library clean and organized.
Perfect for bloggers, agencies, e-commerce sites, and any WordPress website looking to optimize storage space and improve site performance.
🚀 Key Benefits:
✅ Reclaim Server Space – Remove unused files and free up valuable storage 
✅ Improve Site Performance – Faster backups and reduced server load 
✅ Safe & Reversible – Files moved to trash folder, not permanently deleted 
✅ Smart Detection – Advanced algorithms identify truly unused files 
✅ Batch Operations – Process multiple files efficiently 
✅ Detailed Analytics – Comprehensive scan reports and file insights
<h3>🎯 Core Features</h3>
<h3>🔍 Dual Scan Modes</h3>
Media Library Scan 
* Scans all media attachments in your WordPress library 
* Checks for usage in posts, pages, and custom fields 
* Detects thumbnail and size variations 
* Identifies gallery shortcodes and blocks 
* Fast and efficient for large media libraries 
* Recommended for most WordPress sites
File System Scan 
* Deep scan of your uploads directory 
* Finds orphaned files not in the media library 
* Detects cache and temporary files 
* Identifies theme and plugin generated files 
* Comprehensive but may take longer to complete 
* Best for sites with file management plugins
<h3>📊 Smart File Detection</h3>
<ul>
<li>Usage Analysis – Checks posts, pages, custom fields, and widgets</li>
<li>Database Scanning – Searches content for file references</li>
<li>Shortcode Detection – Identifies gallery and media shortcodes</li>
<li>Block Analysis – Scans Gutenberg blocks for media usage</li>
<li>Plugin Integration – Detects files used by popular plugins</li>
<li>Theme Assets – Identifies theme-related media files</li>
</ul>
<h3>🗂️ Advanced File Management</h3>
<ul>
<li>Status Classification – Files categorized as In Use, Unused, or Orphaned</li>
<li>Bulk Actions – Select and process multiple files at once</li>
<li>Smart Filtering – Filter by file type, status, date, and directory</li>
<li>Search Functionality – Quickly find specific files</li>
<li>Preview Mode – View files before taking action</li>
<li>Detailed File Info – Size, type, usage locations, and more</li>
</ul>
<h3>🛡️ Safety Features</h3>
<ul>
<li>Trash System – Files moved to secure trash folder, not deleted</li>
<li>Restore Capability – Easily restore accidentally removed files</li>
<li>Backup Integration – Works with popular backup plugins</li>
<li>Progress Monitoring – Real-time scan progress with pause/resume</li>
<li>System Resources – Intelligent resource management prevents timeouts</li>
<li>Rollback Protection – Safe operations with detailed logging</li>
</ul>
<h3>📈 Comprehensive Analytics</h3>
<ul>
<li>Scan History – Track all previous scans and results</li>
<li>Storage Statistics – See exactly how much space you’ve reclaimed</li>
<li>File Breakdown – Detailed analysis by file type and status</li>
<li>Usage Patterns – Understand your media library usage</li>
<li>Performance Metrics – Scan duration and processing statistics</li>
</ul>
<h3>🚀 Easy 3-Step Process</h3>
Step 1: Choose Scan Type 
* Select Media Library or File System scan based on your needs 
* Configure advanced options for thorough analysis
Step 2: Run the Scan 
* Watch real-time progress as Media Sweep analyzes your files 
* Pause and resume scans as needed without losing progress
Step 3: Review & Clean 
* Browse detected files with detailed information 
* Use bulk actions to efficiently process multiple files 
* Restore files from trash if needed
<h3>🔧 Advanced Configuration</h3>
<ul>
<li>Scan Options – Deep scan, thumbnail inclusion, custom field checking</li>
<li>File Type Filters – Focus on specific file types (images, documents, etc.)</li>
<li>Directory Exclusions – Skip specific folders during scans</li>
<li>Performance Settings – Adjust batch sizes and resource limits</li>
<li>Automation Rules – Set up automatic cleanup schedules (planned for future versions)</li>
</ul>
<h3>💡 Perfect For</h3>
<ul>
<li>Content Creators – Bloggers and publishers with large media libraries</li>
<li>Web Agencies – Managing multiple client sites efficiently</li>
<li>E-commerce Sites – Cleaning up product images and assets</li>
<li>Membership Sites – Optimizing user-generated content</li>
<li>Portfolio Sites – Managing large image collections</li>
<li>News Sites – Handling high-volume media uploads</li>
</ul>
<h3>Support</h3>
Need help with Media Sweep? We’re here to assist!
<ul>
<li>Support Forum: <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/media-sweep/" rel="ugc">WordPress.org support forum</a></li>
<li>Feature Requests: <a href="https://wpcreatix.com/contact/" rel="nofollow ugc">Submit ideas and suggestions</a></li>
<li>Bug Reports: <a href="https://wpcreatix.com/contact/" rel="nofollow ugc">Report issues for quick resolution</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Privacy</h3>
Media Sweep respects your privacy and does not collect or transmit any personal data. All file analysis and cleanup operations are performed locally on your server. No external services are contacted during plugin operation.
<h3>Credits</h3>
Media Sweep is crafted with ❤️ by the <a href="https://wpcreatix.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">WPCreatix</a> team. We’re passionate about creating tools that help WordPress users optimize and maintain their websites efficiently.
Special thanks to the WordPress community for their continuous feedback and support in making this plugin better.

Media Sweep – WordPress Media Cleaner

Clean up your WordPress Media Library by finding and removing unused files. Safely scan, preview, and sweep away orphaned media to keep your site fast …

opicron

Did you ever scale or crop uploaded images in wordpress? Did you ever try various image generating plugins? Did you ever change or add various media image sizes? If yes, chances are that your content folder is full of unused and unreferenced images. These image leftovers will remain cluttering your content folder until the end of days.
Image Cleanup will index these (and many more) unreferenced images. Unreferenced images are not indexed in the wordpress database and also not used by posts, scripts or backup restore meta data. Please note that images which have valid database metadata but are not used in posts are not indexed at this time. This is beyond the scope of this plugin.
Image Cleanup will also find images without meta data and images with incorrect meta data.
<ul>
<li>Save space taken up by unreferenced/backup images!</li>
<li>Fix incorrect metadata (sizes)</li>
<li>Bulk repair/delete functionality</li>
<li>Pagination for extremely large result sets</li>
<li>Logs tabs easily visible for reviewing!</li>
<li>Detailed information in log tabs!</li>
<li>Full restore functionality!</li>
<li>Especially useful for developers!</li>
<li>Written as class to avoid any conflicts!</li>
<li>Highly configurable to avoid memory and/or timeouts on some setups</li>
</ul>
On my one month old website with 50 files (and 250 attachment size variants) this plugin found 95 unreferenced images which I could remove without any conflicts.
There has been a reported case where this plugin indexed and removed over 23.000 images on a website. See forum/review for details
<h4>Image Cleanup workflow details</h4>
<ul>
<li>Retrieves all attachment images from the database (including size variants);</li>
<li>Finds all images in the wp-content folder;</li>
<li>Subtracts the attachment (and size variants) from physical found images;</li>
</ul>
The above will result in an list of invalid images which are not referenced by the database
<ul>
<li>Posts will be searched for images and found images will be subtracted from the invalid files (if any);</li>
<li>Scripts in wp-content will be searched for images and they will be subtracted from the invalid files (if any);</li>
<li>Backup images (for restoring images after scale/crop) will be subtracted from the invalid images;</li>
<li>Found unreferenced files will be checked against the meta data to see if the database meta entry still exist;</li>
</ul>
This results in various image lists in which the images can be reviewed, repaired or removed.
<h4>After indexing</h4>
After indexing you are able to (temporary) move the images to a backup folder to check the site without the images in the wp-content folder. You could also check the logs in the ../wp-content/uploads/image-cleanup/ID/logs folder for full information about the index.
If any problems are found you can revert the move of images by restoring them to their original locations.
When no problems arrise after moving the images to another location it is possible to permanently remove the images.
<h4>Future planned additions</h4>
<ul>
<li>Index unused valid images </li>
<li>Index missing image sizes (and option to generate missing images)</li>
<li>Index missing images which are used in posts</li>
</ul>

Image Cleanup

Image Cleanup will index unreferenced images. These can be leftovers from cropping and scaling images. Stop them cluttering your content folder!

Media Sweep – WordPress Media Cleaner vs Image Cleanup