Troy Chaplin

<p>Smart Media Replacement is a WordPress plugin that allows you to replace media files while maintaining their original URLs and metadata. This is particularly useful for updating files like PDFs, images, or other documents without breaking existing links, especially when organizing media in year and month based folders.</p>
<h4>Features</h4>
<ul>
<li>Replace media files while maintaining original URLs</li>
<li>Preserves all existing links (both internal and external)</li>
<li>Maintains file metadata and relationships</li>
<li>Simple and intuitive interface in the WordPress Media Library</li>
<li>Supports all file types supported by WordPress</li>
<li>Validates file names to prevent accidental URL changes</li>
<li>Enforces dimension matching for images to prevent layout issues</li>
<li>Automatically handles WordPress scaled images</li>
<li>Validates file type matching to ensure consistency</li>
<li>AJAX-based replacement with error handling</li>
</ul>
<h4>Important Requirements</h4>
<p><strong>Filename Matching</strong><br />
The new file MUST have exactly the same filename as the original file. For example, if your original file is <code>logo.png</code>, your replacement must also be named <code>logo.png</code>.</p>
<p><strong>Image Dimensions (Images Only)</strong><br />
For images, the replacement MUST have identical dimensions (width × height) to prevent layout issues.</p>
<p><strong>File Types</strong><br />
The replacement file must be the same file type as the original. The plugin validates MIME types to ensure consistency.</p>
<h4>Privacy</h4>
<p>This plugin:<br />
* Does not collect or transmit any user data<br />
* Does not use cookies<br />
* Only processes files locally on your server<br />
* Does not communicate with external services</p>
<h3>Usage</h3>
<ol>
<li>Go to the WordPress Media Library</li>
<li>Find the file you want to replace</li>
<li>Click on the file to view its details</li>
<li>Look for the “Replace File” button in the attachment details</li>
<li>Click “Replace File” and select your new file</li>
<li>The replacement will happen automatically</li>
</ol>


Smart Media Replacement

Replace media files while maintaining their original URLs and metadata. Update PDFs, images, or documents without breaking existing links.

ShortPixel

<p><strong>A free, lightweight and easy to use plugin that allows you to seamlessly replace an image or file in your Media Library by uploading a new file in its place. No more deleting, renaming and re-uploading files! Now fully compatible with <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/amazon-s3-and-cloudfront/" rel="ugc">WP Offload Media!</a><br />
New beta feature! You can now remove the background of your images for better integration with eCommerce solutions!<br />
Supported by the friendly team that created <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/shortpixel-image-optimiser/" rel="ugc">ShortPixel</a>  🙂</strong></p>
<h4>A real timesaver</h4>
<p>Don’t you find it tedious and complicated to first delete a file and then upload another one with the exact same name every time you want to update an image or other uploaded file in the WordPress media library?</p>
<p>Well, no longer!</p>
<p>Now you can replace any uploaded file in the Edit Media view, where it should be. Replacing Media can be done in two ways:</p>
<h4>It’s simple to replace a file</h4>
<ol>
<li>Simply replace the file. This option requires you to upload a file of the same type as the file you want to replace. The attachment name remains the same regardless of what the file you upload is called.</li>
<li>Replace the file, use the new file name, and update all links. If you check this option, the old file will be replaced with the name and type of the file you are uploading. All links pointing to the current file will be updated to point to the new file name. Additional options for the folder to put the new file in or the date of the new file are also available on the replace screen.</li>
</ol>
<p>This plugin is very powerful and a must-have for all major websites built with WordPress. It also offers a preview of the replaced image!</p>
<h4>New beta feature: You can now remove the background of any image!</h4>
<p>Similar to replacing media, you can also remove the background of the images from the Media Library! The background removal feature sends the images to ShortPixel’s API, removes the background and sends them back in a preview window. If everything looks good, just replace the image with the one that has the background removed! If the source image is a PNG file, you will get a transparent background, while the other images default to a solid white background. You also have the option to choose a different color with an embedded color picker.<br />
The background removal feature is still in beta and will be free of charge for a reasonable usage.</p>
<p>If you don’t want to use the background removal feature, add this line to your theme’s functions.php file, or use a plugin like <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/code-snippets/" rel="ugc">Code Snippets</a>:</p>
<pre><code>`add_filter( 'emr/feature/background', '__return_false' );```
</code></pre>
<p>A similar filter, for the remote notification system is:</p>
<pre><code>`add_filter( 'emr/feature/remote_notice', '__return_false' );```
</code></pre>
<p>To shorten the wait time before redirecting to the media editing screen, use the following filter and specify the wait time in seconds (0 means that redirection is immediate, but may cause problems in certain configurations):</p>
<pre><code>`add_filter('emr/success/timeout', function () { return 3; });```
</code></pre>
<h4>Show file modification time</h4>
<p>There is a shortcode that takes the file modification date and displays it in a post or on a page. The code is:<br />
    [file_modified id=XX format=XXXX] where the “id” is required and the “format” is optional and defaults to your current WordPress settings for date and time format.</p>
<p>So <code>[file_modified id=870]</code> would show the last time the file with ID 870 was updated on your site. To get the ID for a file, check the URL when editing a file in the media library (see screenshot #4)</p>
<p>If you want more control over the format in which the time is shown, you can use the format option. So <code>[file_modified id=870 format=Y-m-d]</code> would show the date the file was modified but not the time. The format string uses <a href="http://php.net/manual/en/function.date.php" rel="nofollow ugc">the standard PHP date() formatting tags</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Other plugins by <a href="https://shortpixel.com" rel="nofollow ugc">ShortPixel</a>:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/fastpixel-website-accelerator/" rel="ugc">FastPixel Caching</a> – WP Optimization made easy</li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/shortpixel-image-optimiser/" rel="ugc">ShortPixel Image Optimizer</a> – Image optimization & compression for all the images on your website, including WebP & AVIF delivery</li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/shortpixel-adaptive-images/" rel="ugc">ShortPixel Adaptive Images</a> – On-the-fly image optimization & CDN delivery</li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/resize-image-after-upload/" rel="ugc">Resize Image After Upload</a> – Automatically resize each uploaded image</li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/regenerate-thumbnails-advanced/" rel="ugc">reGenerate Thumbnails Advanced</a> – Easily regenerate thumbnails</li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-svg-images/" rel="ugc">WP SVG Images</a> – Secure upload of SVG files to Media Library</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Get in touch!</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Email <a href="https://shortpixel.com/contact" rel="nofollow ugc">https://shortpixel.com/contact</a></li>
<li>Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/shortpixel" rel="nofollow ugc">https://twitter.com/shortpixel</a></li>
<li>Facebook <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ShortPixel" rel="nofollow ugc">https://www.facebook.com/ShortPixel</a></li>
<li>LinkedIn <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/shortpixel" rel="nofollow ugc">https://www.linkedin.com/company/shortpixel</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Wishlist / Coming attractions</h3>
<p>Do you have suggestions? Feel free to contact ShortPixel <a href="https://shortpixel.com/contact" rel="nofollow ugc">here</a></p>
<h3>Contribute</h3>
<p>Want to help us improve the plugin feel free to submit PRs via GitHub <a href="https://github.com/short-pixel-optimizer/enable-media-replace" rel="nofollow ugc">here</a>.</p>


Enable Media Replace

A simple smart solution


This plugins provides what seems like such essential functionality that I hope Core adopts it. Until then, Enable Media Replace it is. The plugin developers are responsive to needs, requests, and issues.



Thanks for a great plugin!


Essential functionality, responsive support


very useful when you only need to change files


Used everywhere !!

Easily replace any attached image/file by simply uploading a new file in the Media Library edit view - a real time saver!

Smart Media Replacement vs Enable Media Replace