How to Import FTP Images to WordPress Media Library

WordPress is a great platform for a simple blogger as well as professional web designers and developers. It has great features and everything about this wonderful software seems perfect. From numerous free and premium themes and plugins, to constant updates, security, to great support, to its user friendliness (even to newbies). WordPress just seems to have answered most unanswered questions in the early days of blogging and web development.

However, no matter how perfect it looks, there are still those little imperfections that comes with every great thing. In this tutorial, I’ll briefly discuss how you can Import FTP Images to WordPress Media Library or upload multiple images to wordpress media library through FTP.

WordPress media library is a great too for uploading images and other media files, it only becomes pain in the neck when you’re trying to upload hundreds of images or media files. Even though there is great improvement in this tool in the later versions of wordpress with the introduction of drag and drop feature, it is not still convenient to upload multiple files compared to when uploading through an FTP client like Filezilla or uploading the zipped multiple images in Cpanel.

Why using FTP to upload?

That is a good question to ask, why would you use FTP to upload your images when there is a media uploader in wordpress dashboard? Different people with different reasons, but one of the major reason is because FTP uploads faster and its easier compared to the wordpress media library uploader.

And in my own case, the reason I needed to import images from FTP to wordpress media library is below;

I found myself in a dilemma when I tried uploading a client’s website I designed on my localhost to a live server, it would have been easy as usual if the client had not changed his mind on wanting a fresh installation of wordpress, he made a late request of moving the new design to his old website rather than the agreed new domain. This new project was completely done in localhost and contains large number of images and audio files.

I installed the newly customized theme to the old website as usual, exported the site using the default wordpress import/export tool, import to the live server in same manner and unfortunately, images were not imported.

After searches and researches, I finally was able to safe a whole lot of time with this free but efficient plugin Add From Server Plugin.

How to Import FTP Images to WordPress Media Library using Add From Server Plugin

Download and install Add From Server Plugin from wordpress repository, activate the plugin and click on Import files.

You will now see the folders in your WordPress directory. Select the location of your files and check each of the files you want to upload to your wordpress media library and click the Import button. If you want to select all files, check the box next to “File” at the top.

Wait for some seconds or minutes depending on the number of images you are importing. Now go to your media library to see all of your imported images. Enjoy! 🙂

Drop any question below if you have any difficulty importing your images from FTP to wordpress media library.