radogado

Rado’s Native Lightbox instantly upgrades every WordPress gallery into a beautiful, full-screen lightbox carousel. Just activate and go — your existing galleries are transformed automatically, no shortcodes to learn, no settings pages to configure.
Built on <a href="https://nativecarousel.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Native Carousel</a>, it uses the browser’s own scroll-snapping instead of heavy animation libraries. The result is buttery-smooth swiping on phones, fluid keyboard navigation on desktops, and a total footprint of roughly 13 KB — smaller than a single thumbnail image.
Why this plugin?
<ul>
<li>Zero configuration — activate it and every gallery on your site becomes a lightbox carousel. Deactivate it and galleries revert to normal. Nothing is written to your database.</li>
<li>Truly lightweight — ~13 KB total (JS + CSS). No jQuery, no frameworks, no external requests. Your PageSpeed score stays intact.</li>
<li>Works with any theme — Twenty Twenty-Five, Astra, GeneratePress, or anything else. The plugin bundles everything it needs.</li>
<li>Accessible by default — full keyboard navigation, focus trapping in the lightbox, screen-reader labels on every control, and <code>prefers-reduced-motion</code> support.</li>
<li>Native scroll-snap — hardware-accelerated, 60 fps swiping powered by the browser itself, not JavaScript animation loops.</li>
<li>Dark mode aware — the lightbox overlay adapts to the visitor’s system color scheme automatically.</li>
</ul>
Features at a glance:
<ul>
<li>Full-screen lightbox with swipe, keyboard and mouse-wheel navigation</li>
<li>Compact thumbnail index strip with scrollable overflow</li>
<li>“Thumbnails only” toggle in both the Block Editor sidebar and Classic Editor settings</li>
<li>Endless (infinite loop) navigation</li>
<li>Lazy-loaded images with low-resolution placeholder blur while loading</li>
<li>Captions and alt text fully preserved</li>
<li>Featured-image click opens the matching gallery slide on single posts</li>
<li>Editor performance guard — caps image sizes in the block editor to prevent crashes with large galleries</li>
</ul>
How it works:
The plugin intercepts gallery rendering at display time and outputs <a href="https://nativecarousel.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Native Carousel</a> HTML markup. Your post content is never modified — the transformation is purely visual and fully reversible.
<h3>Third-party source code</h3>
This plugin bundles minified assets from Native Carousel, an open-source carousel component (GPL-2.0-or-later).
<ul>
<li>Homepage & documentation: <a href="https://nativecarousel.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">https://nativecarousel.com/</a></li>
<li>Source code repository: <a href="https://github.com/radogado/n-carousel" rel="nofollow ugc">https://github.com/radogado/n-carousel</a></li>
</ul>
The following files in <code>assets/</code> are the minified production builds:
<ul>
<li><code>n-carousel.min.js</code> — carousel runtime</li>
<li><code>n-carousel-preload.min.js</code> — image preloader</li>
<li><code>n-carousel.min.css</code> — carousel styles</li>
</ul>
The unminified, human-readable source is available in the GitHub repository linked above. No build tools are needed to work with this plugin’s own code — <code>gallery-lightbox.css</code> and the admin JavaScript files are shipped unminified and readable.
This plugin is also maintained as part of the niui theme project: 
<a href="https://gitlab.com/spacest/niui/-/tree/main/rados-native-lightbox" rel="nofollow ugc">https://gitlab.com/spacest/niui/-/tree/main/rados-native-lightbox</a>

Rado's Native Lightbox

Transforms WordPress galleries into lightweight lightbox carousels. Works with any theme — only ~13 KB.

Ben Dunkle

This plugin transforms the Gutenberg gallery block into a lightbox with previous/next navigation. It was built to offer those who wish to present a series of images in lightbox/slider format with a simple, lightweight solution.
<h4>Installation</h4>
<ul>
<li>Install the plugin through the Install Plugins interface or by uploading the <code>ggbl-lightbox</code> folder to your <code>/wp-content/plugins/</code> directory.</li>
<li>Activate the plugin.</li>
<li>Make sure you select “Media File” in the Link To dropdown menu for your galleries</li>
</ul>
<h4>Why did you make this plugin?</h4>
I haven’t found a lightbox that is optimized for Gutenberg galleries. Many generate their own gallery formats or contain unneccesary options. I wanted to build one that was as minimal as possible, while offering a functional and elegant experience.

Gutenberg Gallery Blocks Lightbox

This plugin transforms the Gutenberg gallery block into a lightbox with previous/next navigation. It was built to offer those who wish to present a se …

Rado's Native Lightbox vs Gutenberg Gallery Blocks Lightbox