‘Help! I’ve run out of media storage space on my blog and can no longer upload new photos, images or videos. What can I do?’
That was a question to me from Michael, who blogs at Spo-Reflections.
Michael was happy to upgrade his WordPress plan to get more media space, but there are other things you could do if your blog runs out of media space.
1. Upgrade your plan.
WordPress currently offers 6 plans.
The amount of media storage space you get varies. Click the following link to see the plans: ‘There Is A Plan For You.’ Pricing is correct at the time of publication of this post.
Each plan provides the following media storage space.
| Name of plan | Storage Amount |
| Free | 1GB |
| Personal | 6GB |
| Premium | 13GB |
| Business | 200GB |
| Commerce | 200GB |
| Enterprise | N/A |
However, only upgrade your WordPress plan if you absolutely need to. Do not go into debt to upgrade unless you can afford it; there are other ways to free up media storage space.
2. Resize the size of your images and photos.
One of the biggest reasons bloggers run out of media space is that they do not resize their images and photos before uploading them to their media library.
There are several ways you can reduce the size of images and photos. You can reduce them using photo-editing software or the tools on your device for blogging.
I use an Apple iMac and can change the size of photos and images by clicking Tools> Adjust Size on the menubar of my desktop computer. I do this before uploading them to my WordPress media library.
I recommend reducing image and photo sizes to 900 x 675 pixels.
On a Windows computer, you can use Microsoft Paint. Open your image with that program, then click on Resize. You can find this option on the middle-right side of the “Image” section at the top of the Paint window.
The WordPress media library also has editing software, but please note that if you reduce the size of an image or photo using this tool, the original image is kept in your media library, so you won’t have freed up any storage space unless you delete it.
Large images can also slow your blog’s download speed, negatively impacting search engine rankings and the overall user experience. So, I recommend you always reduce the size of images and photos before uploading them to your blog.
3. Do not upload videos to your media library.
If you include videos in your blog posts, uploading them to your media library can take up vast amounts of space.
To overcome this problem and free up all the space they take up, upload your videos to YouTube. Then add the YouTube block to your blog post and include the video link in the block.
Do this for any existing videos you have in your media library. Upload them to YouTube, then add them via the YouTube block before deleting the originals from your media library. This will free up large amounts of storage in your media library.
4. Delete images from your media library.
We can accumulate vast amounts of images and photos in our media library, many of which will become redundant.
Deleting these images will free up storage space. However, when you delete images or photos from your media library, they disappear from the blog posts where they appear.
My blog post, ‘Are Your Old Blog Posts Damaging Your Blog? How To Stop It From Happening’ details why bloggers should delete old blog posts.
Deleting old, redundant blog posts containing images, photos, and videos frees up storage space. However, delete any images, photos and videos in your media library before deleting the posts.
If you’re unsure whether a post should be deleted, read my post, ‘Are Your Old Blog Posts Damaging Your Blog? How To Stop It From Happening,’ for advice.
5. Reduce the number of images and photos you add to blog posts.
While I recommend adding at least one image or photo to a blog post (because blog posts containing images get up to 70% more traffic), reducing the number of images and pictures will help save media space.
Before adding more images or photos, ask yourself whether they are necessary for your post.
Let’s wrap it up.
- Resize your images and photos before uploading them to your blog’s media library.
- Upload videos to YouTube and use the YouTube block to show them on your blog posts.
- Delete old images and photos from your media library, but remember to remove them from any posts first.
- Do not resize images using tools in the media library, as this does not save storage space.
- Consider deleting old blog posts that are no longer relevant.
- Reduce the number of images and photos in blog posts. Ask yourself if they’re necessary.
How do you free up storage space in your blog’s media library? If you have any questions about this post, leave them in the comments section.
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The featured image in this post was created using the WordPress image generator. AI was used to check for grammar and spelling mistakes and to help with the layout of the post.
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