Refreshing thumbnails in WordPress is one of those awesome little time savers that you’ll be extremely grateful for. There are a few common scenarios that require you to regenerate thumbnails for images on your blog. If you are currently in such a situation, read on and find out how.
Why Regenerate Thumbnails
There are three common situations that warrant thumbnail regeneration. The main thing in all current thumbnail size is not compatible with some of the changes you made and thumbnails need to be changed to appear correctly throughout your blog.
Before we look at a few scenarios that require thumbnails to be regenerated, let’s talk quickly about WordPress image sizes and thumbnails.
WordPress has three image sizes set by default:
These are the maximum width and height values allowed. Preset values are necessary to maintain the uniformity of the images you use on your website, regardless of their actual size.
You can change these values for each of the image sizes by going to: Settings > Media and applying the width and height that suits you best.
You would think that by changing the values in the Media Settings, all the images on your website would conform to the new settings. In most cases, you would be right. After all, these are general settings and apply to everything on your site.
However, there are situations where this does not apply. That’s when you need to regenerate thumbnails. Here are the three most common scenarios we talked about earlier:
New theme. Let’s say you decide to refresh your website and switch to one of the latest premium WordPress themes. When you change your theme, there is a possibility that it will come with completely different thumbnail size settings. After installing the new theme, all the images you upload and post will look good, but the old ones will be blurry or crooked, too large or too small.
Theme update. Sometimes even if you do not change the entire theme and update only the one you are using, the thumbnail size settings may change or no longer work.
Changing the size in Media Settings. If for some reason you decide to change the thumbnail size in Media Settings, you will most likely need to apply your changes to all previously uploaded images, otherwise there will be a huge difference between them and the new ones.
These three common situations can be easily fixed by recreating the thumbnails. With this trick, all of your original images will fit in the new dimensions, whether they’re old images or images you’ve uploaded after making changes to the site or theme.
Regenerating Thumbnails
While “recreating thumbnails” probably sounds very technical, it’s actually quite a simple process. And of course, as is usually the case with WordPress, there is a plugin for that!
It’s called a thumbnail plugin Regenerate Thumbnailsit’s completely free and has over a million active installs.
One of the best WordPress plugins for this purpose has a mission: Regenerate all thumbnail sizes for images in your Media Library. It also helps you find and delete unused thumbnails and lighten the load on your server.
The Regenerate Thumbnails plugin for WordPress is very simple to install and use, is regularly updated, has excellent ratings, and comes with ample support. And here’s how to use it:
1. Log into your Control Panel and navigate to: Additions. click add new.
Type 2 “Regenerate Thumbnails” in the search bar. Once you find the add-on, click on it. Install now.
3. You will also need to click on enable to complete the process after the installation is complete.
4. Return to the menu. You can access the plugin at: Vehicles and clicking on Regenerate Thumbnails.
5. The plugin will offer the ability to regenerate thumbnails for all your attachments and featured images. All you have to do is click the button.
6. Another way to regenerate thumbnails is with your Media Library. After installing the plugin, Collective actions there will be a new option in the drop down menu, Regenerate Thumbnails. Check and click the images for which you want to regenerate the thumbnails. To apply.
Note: To do this, the view in your Media Library must be set to List.
Also, make sure you give this WordPress rebuild thumbnail plugin enough time to complete its actions. The more thumbnails it needs to refresh, the more time it will take. Do not upload new images until the plugin has finished rebuilding existing ones.
final thoughts
Regenerating thumbnails using this excellent WordPress plugin is a great way to ensure your images are consistent and uniform throughout your blog. You can use it whenever you change the image size settings, update your theme, or switch to a different theme. Try it, you’ll be glad you did.
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