EvoMedia – Link-Safe Media Replace, Convert & Cleanup

WordPress will not let you change the file behind an existing attachment. You delete, re-upload, then hunt down thirty broken images by hand.

EvoMedia replaces the file in place, keeps the attachment ID, and rewrites every reference to it across your whole database – post content, postmeta, and the serialized structures page builders and custom fields store their data in. Any file, not only images: a PDF price list re-issued every month is swapped in one step, links intact.

That last part is the whole point. An image URL is not only in your post content: it is buried inside Elementor’s JSON, ACF fields and WooCommerce gallery meta, all of it serialized, where a naive search-and-replace corrupts the data and takes the page down with it. The section below explains why.

The same engine then lets it do something no image optimizer does: convert a JPEG to WebP and keep the attachment, renaming photo.jpg to photo.webp and repointing every reference at the new file. Other plugins keep the original and add a parallel file served through an .htaccess rule, a <picture> tag or a CDN. EvoMedia changes the actual file on your disk. There is no rewriting layer at page-render time – nothing to break when you switch hosts, and nothing to un-install later.

And once your library grows, EvoMedia helps you see into it: an index of where every file is actually used – a PDF linked from ten pages included – so you know what is safe to remove, plus reports of the duplicate and orphaned files quietly wasting your disk.

Everything runs on your own server, through Imagick or GD: no account with us, no credits, no monthly quota, no upload limit. The one thing that can ever leave your server is optional and switched on by you – enter your own API key and EvoMedia can ask OpenAI, Google or Anthropic to write the alt text of an image you press the button on. With no key it makes no network requests at all.

What it does

• Replace any file, safely – an image, a PDF, a document, an archive. Upload a new file over an existing attachment: keep the current name and the URL never changes, or adopt the uploaded name, or change format entirely. Every reference across posts and postmeta is rewritten, serialized data included. Optionally back up the current file first, edit the title, set the date.
• Convert to WebP, AVIF or JPEG – whichever your server can encode, automatically on upload or in bulk across your existing library, with progress feedback. The System Info page shows exactly which formats your image driver supports.
• Fix the alt text, and see what is missing – read and correct the alt text of any image straight from the list, and switch to a view that shows only the ones that have none. Optionally have a model write the first draft from the picture, with your own API key from OpenAI, Google or Anthropic, in the language you choose – the suggestion waits in the editor until you accept it.
• Manage image sub-sizes – switch off the resized copies your theme never uses and WordPress stops making them: faster uploads, less clutter. A live count shows how many images have each size, and one click regenerates the library to match. Core sizes are flagged so you never turn one off by mistake.
• Resize oversized uploads – optionally cap every incoming image at 2560px and drop the full-size original WordPress would otherwise keep beside it, so oversized photos never bloat your library. Off by default; nothing changes until you switch it on from the upload panel.
• See where every file is used – build an index of your content, then read a count on each file, a linked PDF included, showing how many places refer to it. Open it to see the exact pages, posts, custom fields and site settings, and which size each one uses. Sort by it to bring the unused ones together, and get a report of pages asking for files your library no longer has.
• Find duplicate images – spot pictures your library holds more than once, compared byte for byte rather than guessed from their size, with the disk space the extra copies are wasting. Entries that merely share one file on disk are listed apart, because deleting one of those would take the file the others use.
• Find orphaned files – list files in your upload folders that no Media Library item claims, each with a preview. Only the year and month folders WordPress itself creates are scanned, so caches, page-builder folders and backups are never touched, and any file your content still asks for by name is flagged as still in use.
• A record of every rewrite – when Replace renames a file it rewrites the references to it across your posts, custom fields and site settings; that history is listed, so you always know what changed and where.
• Backup and restore – the original is archived before every conversion, and can be restored or deleted per image or in bulk.
• Compression quality – one slider, from 10 to 100. A master switch turns the engine off without deactivating the plugin.
• Control Center – your whole library on one screen, images and documents alike: sort, search, preview, download, see each file’s format, size and backup state.
• System Info – a one-click report of what your server can actually do, and of every other plugin EvoMedia has to coexist with.

Write the alt text, or have it written

Alt text is the one field on an image that is always in use. A theme may never print a caption or a description, but the alt attribute goes out with every image WordPress renders, is what a screen reader announces, and is what a search engine reads the picture through. It is also the field nobody fills, because WordPress offers it one image at a time behind a modal.

EvoMedia puts it under the file name in the Control Center, where you can read it and correct it without leaving the list, and adds a view that shows only the images that have none – with the count beside it, so you know how big the job is before you start.

And if you want help writing them, you can bring an API key from OpenAI, Google or Anthropic and let a model describe the picture. The suggestion lands in the open editor and waits: nothing is stored until you accept it, because a sentence written straight into sixty alt attributes is how a library fills with confident nonsense nobody read. You choose which language the answer comes back in, so a site selling into another country is not stuck with the language it is written in.

There is no service of ours in the middle, no account to create with us, and no markup: the request goes from your server straight to the provider, on your key and your bill. Leave the key empty and nothing about this ever runs.

Why the serialization matters

Try this with any other tool: put an image in an Elementor section, then rename the file. Elementor stores its layout as a serialized PHP array inside postmeta, and every string in it is prefixed with its own byte length. Change photo.jpg to photo.webp with a plain SQL replace and the recorded length no longer matches the string. PHP refuses to unserialize it. The section disappears.

EvoMedia walks the structure, replaces the value, and lets PHP recompute the lengths. This is why it can offer replace, format conversion and (in the Pro add-on) renaming at all – and it is the part that took the longest to get right.

Take control of the sizes WordPress generates

Every upload, WordPress quietly creates a stack of resized copies – thumbnail, medium, large, and hidden HiDPI versions – whether your theme uses them or not. EvoMedia lists every registered size with a live count of how many images in your library have it, lets you turn off the ones you don’t need (only new uploads and regenerations are affected – files already on disk are left alone), and regenerates your whole library to match with a single button and a progress bar. Core sizes are flagged, so you never switch off one the theme relies on by accident.

Know which images you can actually delete

Every library accumulates images nobody uses, and the reason they are never cleared out is that you cannot tell which ones they are. Deleting the wrong one takes a page down.

EvoMedia scans your posts, pages, custom fields and site settings and records where each image is referenced – including the ones page builders name by ID with no URL to search for, and the ones held in a category image, an author profile or your site logo. Each image then carries a count you can sort by, and opening it lists the exact places, with the size each one uses.

It reports only what it can prove. An image referenced solely from a theme file, a stylesheet or an external service cannot be seen from the database, and every list says so. An image that has not been scanned yet shows “?” and never “0” – because “nobody uses this” and “nobody has looked” are different answers, and confusing them is how cleanup tools delete pictures that were still on a page.

The same honesty applies to sizes. The count tells you an image is in use; it cannot always tell you which sub-size, because page builders store the image and choose the size while the page is being drawn. The Image Sub-sizes panel says so where you would act on it, rather than letting a confident number imply more than it knows.

Built to coexist

Media plugins break each other. EvoMedia is written to notice what else is installed:

• WPML and Polylang – a translated picture is an attachment of its own pointing at the same file, which is how it carries a translated title and alt text. EvoMedia keeps every language sibling in sync, and its duplicate report tells a translation set apart from a real duplicate instead of listing half your library as a fault.
• Page builders – Elementor and friends store their data as slashed JSON inside postmeta. EvoMedia writes exact bytes rather than letting WordPress re-escape them.
• Cloud offload – if WP Offload Media, Cloudinary, Media Cloud, WP-Stateless or S3 Uploads is active, EvoMedia refuses to touch the files rather than corrupt your remote bucket, and tells you why.

External services

Everything EvoMedia does runs on your own server, with one exception that you switch on yourself: writing alt text with AI.

If, and only if, you enter an API key in Settings, pressing the AI button on an image sends that image and a short text instruction to the provider you chose, so it can describe the picture; the answer comes back as suggested alt text. Nothing is sent until you press the button, nothing is sent in the background, and no service of ours sits in the middle – the request goes from your site straight to the provider, on your key and your account.

One provider is used at a time, and only the one you switch on is ever contacted:

• OpenAI – terms, privacy
• Google Gemini – terms, privacy
• Anthropic Claude – terms, privacy

Leave the key empty, or remove it, and the plugin makes no network requests at all.

Requirements

PHP 8.1 or later, and either Imagick (recommended) or GD. Which output formats you can use depends on your host’s image driver – WebP and AVIF are common, JPEG XL is rare; the System Info page tells you exactly what your server can do.

EvoMedia Pro

Every WordPress library fills with weight nothing uses: the same photo uploaded three times, sub-sizes no theme touches, the full-resolution originals beside every large image. It never gets cleaned out for one reason – you cannot safely tell what is still in use.

The free EvoMedia shows you where that waste is. EvoMedia Pro clears it, and does the one thing other cleanup plugins get dangerously wrong: it never removes anything your site still needs. Before deleting a file it re-checks your live content, not a stale scan.

• Reclaim the space unused images waste – the free “Used in” count shows which pictures nothing points at; the Pro removes them, singly or in bulk, re-checking live first and refusing to delete a file another entry shares.
• Collapse duplicate uploads into one – three uploads of one photo is three times the disk. The Pro merges the set onto the copy you keep, repointing every reference first. Reversible.
• Clear orphaned files – the leftovers of old renames and imports that no library item claims, often the heaviest files on your disk. Deleted only after a fresh re-scan, never while your content still asks for them.
• Strip the oversized “-scaled” originals – WordPress keeps a full-resolution copy beside every image over 2560px, several megabytes each and invisible in the admin. Clear them library-wide, keeping the image people see.
• Delete the sub-sizes you turned off – the free stops generating them; the Pro removes the copies already on disk library-wide, and can regenerate a single size for every image in one pass.
• Resize on your own terms – your own maximum on upload instead of the fixed 2560px cap, and shrink any single image from the Control Center: proportional, never enlarging, and refusing rather than breaking a page.
• Rename without breaking anything – rename from the Media Library and every reference is rewritten, serialized page-builder and ACF data included. Reversible.
• Alt text for a whole library – the free writes one image at a time from the picture alone. The Pro writes a whole selection at once, from the page each image appears in, and on WPML or Polylang writes each language in its own.
• And more – JPEG XL uploads where the server supports them, and a backups manager for your archived originals.

EvoMedia Pro installs alongside this plugin and needs it to run.

None of that code is in this plugin. This is not a trial and has nothing locked or limited: no licence check, no upsell nag, no counter, no expiry, no cap on how many images you may process. Everything it ships, it does.