How to change the default media upload location in WordPress

Do you want to change the default media upload location in WordPress?

Moving media files to other folders can improve website speed and performance and help you create backups faster. It also gives you the freedom to organize your files in the way that suits you best.

In this article, we will show you how to change the default media upload location in WordPress.

Why change the default media upload location?

By default, WordPress stores all images and other media files in the /wp-content/uploads/ folder.

In this folder, you will find subfolders for different years and months. For example, all files you uploaded in January 2023 will be stored in https://example.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/.

This default structure works for most WordPress blogs and websites. However, sometimes you may want to change the location where WordPress stores files. For example, you can host images on a subdomain because this can improve your WordPress performance.

Moving media files to other folders can also help you create backups faster.

That being said, let's take a look at how to gradually change the default media upload location in WordPress.

Change the default media upload location in WordPress

To change the media directory, you need to add code snippets to your WordPress website. That is, you may need to create a backup of your website before making any changes.

Once done, you need to connect to your site using an FTP client such as FileZilla. If you haven't used FTP before, please refer to our beginner's guide on how to upload files to WordPress using FTP.

After connecting with FTP, simply create a new folder to store the media files. Make a note of the exact folder name, as you will need it in the next step.

Next, you need to add code snippets to WordPress. Typically, WordPress tutorials will ask you to add custom code to the theme's functions.php file.

The biggest problem is that even a tiny bug in a custom code snippet can break your WordPress website and even make it inaccessible. Also, the next time you update your WordPress theme, you will lose all your custom code.

Therefore, we recommend using WPCode. WPCode is the most popular code snippet plugin that allows you to add custom CSS, PHP, HTML, and more without putting your WordPress website at risk.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the free WPCode plugin on your website. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install WordPress plug-ins.

Once activated, go to Code Snippets in the WordPress dashboard » Add Snippets.

On this screen, hover over Add your own custom code snippet and click it when Use code snippet appears.

First, enter the title of the code snippet. This is for your reference only, so you can use whatever you want.

When finished, open the Code Type drop-down list and select PHP Fragment.

You can now paste the following into the code editor:

When you are done, scroll to the top of the screen and click the Inactive switch to make it appear Active.

You can then go ahead and click Save Fragment to make the code take effect.

Now that you have changed the media upload location, you may want to change how the files are organized in this new folder.

By default, WordPress stores all media files in month and year folders. If you want all files to be saved in the same folder, go to Settings » Media .

You can now uncheck the "Organize my uploads..." box and click "Save changes".

WordPress now uploads all your media files to the same folder. To view these files, simply connect to your site using the FTP client and open the folder of your choice.

For more information on troubleshooting WordPress upload issues, see our guide on how to fix common image problems in WordPress.

We hope this article helps you change the default media upload location in WordPress. You may also want to check out our guide for the most common WordPress errors and how to fix them, as well as the best SEO plugins and tools you should use.

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