Unattached Media Manager

But the real value is fixing WordPress’s attachment system so you don’t need to depend on any plugin long-term.

Two Processing Modes

• Browser-Driven (Recommended) — Fast and reliable with real-time progress. Keep the browser tab open until complete.
• Background (WP-Cron) — Processing continues even after closing your browser. Ideal for server cron setups.

Key Features

• Comprehensive Scanning — Detects media usage in post content, featured images, Gutenberg blocks, ACF fields, Elementor, Meta Box, WooCommerce, SEO plugins, widgets, theme options, and more
• Fix Unattached Media — One-click to properly attach all “used but unattached” media
• Media Library Integration — See usage count directly in your Media Library list view
• Safe Deletion — WordPress trash support with restore capability
• Change History — Full audit trail with one-click revert for any attachment
• Pause & Resume — Stop any operation and continue later
• Resource Aware — Three modes (Low/Auto/High) for shared hosting to dedicated servers
• Export Reports — Download CSV reports of all media usage
• Developer Friendly — Hooks, filters, REST API, and WP-CLI commands

The Problem It Solves

WordPress marks media as “Unattached” if it wasn’t uploaded directly to a post. But many media files ARE being used — they’re just embedded via:

• The block editor (Gutenberg)
• Page builders like Elementor or Beaver Builder
• ACF image/gallery fields
• WooCommerce product galleries
• Theme customizer settings
• Widget areas
• Shortcodes
• Custom meta boxes

Unattached Media Manager finds ALL these references and properly attaches the media , so WordPress correctly reflects which files are actually in use.

Server-Friendly Design

This plugin is designed to work on ALL servers, including shared hosting with limited resources:

• Never blocks your site – All heavy operations are processed in batches
• Adaptive resource usage – Automatically detects server limits and adjusts accordingly
• Three resource modes: Low Resources – 5 items/batch, 2-minute intervals (for shared hosting)
• Auto (Recommended) – 15 items/batch, 1-minute intervals (adjusts automatically)
• High Performance – 50 items/batch, 30-second intervals (for dedicated servers)

Two processing strategies – Choose browser-driven (fast) or background WP-Cron mode

Supported Content Types

ALL features below are FREE – no Pro version required!

• Post Content – Classic editor, Gutenberg blocks, shortcodes, inline styles, data attributes
• Featured Images – Thumbnail assignments
• ACF Fields – Image, gallery, file, repeater, flexible content, and group fields
• Gutenberg Blocks – Core image, gallery, cover, media & text blocks
• Elementor – All widgets, backgrounds, galleries, sliders, and responsive images
• Meta Box – All field types including groups and cloneable fields
• WooCommerce – Product galleries, variation images, downloadable files, category thumbnails
• SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO, Rank Math, All in One SEO, SEOPress (OpenGraph & Twitter images)
• Widgets – Image widgets, text widgets with media, custom HTML
• Theme Options – Customizer settings, theme mods, custom logos
• Options Table – Plugin settings that store media IDs or URLs
• Video & Audio – HTML5 video/audio elements, poster images, source tags
• Responsive Images – srcset attributes and lazy-loading data attributes

For Developers

Unattached Media Manager is built with extensibility in mind:

• Hooks & Filters – Extend scanning with custom parsers
• REST API – Query media usage programmatically
• WP-CLI Commands – Run scans from the command line ( wp unmam scan )
• Custom Post Types – Automatically scans all public post types

How to Use

Step 1: Run Your First Scan

1. 06Navigate to Media → Media Solution
2. 07Click Start Full Scan
3. 08Choose your processing mode (Browser-Driven recommended for most users)
4. 09Watch the real-time progress as your media library is scanned

Step 2: Review the Dashboard

After scanning, you’ll see:

• Total Media Files – All attachments in your library
• In Use – Media files with detected references
• Potentially Unused – Media files with no detected references
• Used but Unattached – Media that’s used but marked as “Unattached” in WordPress
• Total References – Total number of places media is referenced

Step 3: Fix Unattached Media

If you have “Used but Unattached” media:

1. 10Click the Attach All Media Files button
2. 11The operation runs in the background
3. 12Each attachment is tracked in Change History for easy reverting

Step 4: Clean Up Unused Media

Go to the Unused Media tab to:

1. 13Review – Check each file before taking action
2. 14Move to Trash – Safely move to WordPress trash (can be restored)
3. 15Restore – Bring items back from trash if needed
4. 16Delete Permanently – Remove forever (cannot be undone)
5. 17Empty Trash – Delete all trashed media at once

Important: All bulk operations run in the background. You’ll see a status bar showing progress.

Step 5: Review Change History

The Change History tab shows:

• All attachments made by this plugin
• When each change occurred
• What post each media was attached to
• Option to Revert any change (detaches the media)

Important Precautions

Before Deleting Any Media

1. 18Always run a full scan first – Make sure the index is up to date
2. 19Review files manually – The scanner detects database references, but images might be: Hardcoded in theme PHP files
3. 20Used by external websites linking to your images
4. 21Referenced in custom code or third-party plugins not yet supported
5. 22Used in email templates stored outside WordPress
6. 23Use Trash first – Move to trash instead of deleting permanently
7. 24Know what the trash does – Trashing changes an item’s status. It does not remove the file or break anything on your site. See below.

What Trashing Does And Does Not Do

Moving media to the trash only changes its status in the database. The file stays on your server, and any image already placed in your content keeps displaying exactly as before.

This matters because it is tempting to trash a batch of “unused” files and then browse the site looking for broken images to find the mistakes. That does not work. Nothing will look broken, whether the files were genuinely unused or not. Images only break after a permanent delete, which is the point where it is too late to learn from them.

Two things that do reliably tell you whether a file is in use:

• Your server access logs. Search them for requests under /wp-content/uploads/ over the last month or two. Files that no browser has ever requested are genuinely unused. This also catches images that other websites link to, which no plugin can detect.
• A staging copy. Clone the site, permanently delete there, then crawl it with a broken link checker. You get a real list of what breaks with no risk to the live site.

Also worth knowing: WordPress empties the trash automatically. Items sitting in the trash longer than the EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS setting, 30 days by default, are deleted permanently on a schedule, and for media that removes the files from your server. You do not have to click Empty Trash for this to happen. If you are keeping things in the trash deliberately while you check them, raise EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS in wp-config.php first.

About “Potentially Unused” Media

Files marked as “Potentially Unused” means:

• No references were found in the scanned content
• This doesn’t guarantee the file is unused
• The file might be used in ways not detected: Theme template files (hardcoded)
• External sites linking to your images
• Custom plugins with non-standard storage
• CSS background images defined in stylesheets
• JavaScript-loaded images

Recommended Workflow

1. 25Scan – Run a full scan with all content types enabled
2. 26Review – Look at the Unused Media tab
3. 27Research – For each file, consider where it might be used
4. 28Trash – Move questionable items to trash (not permanent delete)
5. 29Verify – Check your server access logs for requests to those files, or test the deletion on a staging copy. Do not wait for broken images to appear, because trashing never produces any
6. 30Delete – Only permanently delete after confirming no issues

Server Resources

• Shared Hosting – Use “Low Resources”