Export Media URLs

Vanliga frågor

What data can I export?

For every media item you can export the ID, Title, File Name, URL, File Size, MIME Type, Dimensions, sized-image URLs (thumbnail/medium/large), Caption, Alt Text, an ”Alt Missing” flag, Description, Parent Post and Parent URL, the upload date, and the full ”Used In” set — count, post titles, post URLs, post IDs and post types — plus an ”Unused” flag. Choose exactly the columns you want using the grouped checkboxes and quick-select presets.

Can I export to JSON as well as CSV?

Yes. You can download the data as a CSV file, download it as JSON, or display it in a paginated table right inside the dashboard.

What is the difference between ”Uploaded To (Parent)” and ”Used In”?

They answer two different questions. Uploaded To (Parent) is WordPress’s own post_parent value — it records the single post that was open in the editor when the file was uploaded (or nothing, for files added from Dashboard → Media). It never changes when you later insert the image elsewhere. Used In is computed fresh by scanning your posts and pages for every place the item is actually referenced — featured images, editor content, galleries and pasted URLs — so one item can list several posts, exactly matching where it is used today.

Can I find media that isn’t used anywhere?

Two ways, and they mean different things. The ”Attachment Status → Unattached” filter lists media whose post_parent is 0 (typically anything uploaded from Dashboard → Media) — but such a file may still be used in a post. For real usage, add the ”Used In (count)” and ”Unused” fields (or the Where Used / Cleanup preset): ”Unused” is flagged only when the item is not referenced by any scanned post. Please treat it as a strong hint, not proof — references stored by page builders, custom fields, widgets, sliders or CSS are not scanned, so always confirm before deleting anything.

Can I find images missing alt text?

Yes. Add the ”Alt Missing” field (or use the SEO / Accessibility preset). Any image with no alt text is flagged, so you can fix accessibility and SEO gaps quickly.

Will it work on a large site without timing out?

The export reads attachments in batches and streams results out as it goes, so memory stays bounded no matter how many items you have. You can also export a specific item range to keep each request small.

Is the exported CSV safe to open in Excel?

Yes. Cell values that begin with =, +, – or @ are neutralized, so a malicious value cannot run as a spreadsheet formula when the file is opened.

My captions contain commas and quotes. Will that break the CSV?

No. Every field is quoted and any quote inside a value is doubled, exactly as the CSV standard requires, so commas and quotes in your text are always safe.

What genuinely does cause trouble is a line break stored inside a caption or description. That is still valid CSV, but the record then spans several physical lines and plenty of importers read it as several broken records. ”Keep every record on one line” under Show Advanced Options replaces those line breaks with a space, so one record is always one line.

If instead every column lands in a single cell when you double-click the file, that is Excel using your locale’s list separator. Switch the CSV field delimiter to semicolon.

My export shows ”’” where an apostrophe should be. Can that be fixed?

Yes — tick ”Repair mis-encoded characters” under Show Advanced Options (it is on by default). Text that was saved as UTF-8 but later read back through an older character set turns ”’” into ”’”, ”–” into ”–” and ”é” into ”é”. The repair puts them back.

It is deliberately cautious: it only rewrites text whose damage is provable, so accented, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, CJK and emoji characters are never touched. The damage lives in your database, so the repair applies to the export only — your posts are not modified.

Why does one image with a ”Used In (count)” of 3 produce only one line?

Because the export lists media items, and each item gets one row with all three posts listed inside the ”Used In (posts)” cell. Tick ”One row per usage” and that item exports as three rows instead, one per referencing post, which is much easier to sort, filter and pivot. ”Used In (count)” still shows the total on every row.

Why does an image that is clearly used report a count of 0?

Because the standard scan reads post content, and some references are not stored there. WooCommerce product galleries, ACF fields and page builders such as Elementor, Divi and WPBakery keep their references in custom fields instead.

Tick ”Also scan custom fields and page-builder data” to include those. It reads every custom field on the site, so it takes noticeably longer — but it is the usual reason a visible image reports 0. Even then, treat ”Unused” as a hint rather than proof: references in widgets, theme options or CSS are still not scanned.

Does Export Media URLs make changes to the database?

No. It only stores your last field selection as a per-user preference; it does not create tables or modify your content.

Which PHP version do I need?

This plugin works with PHP version 5.4 and greater. WordPress itself recommends using PHP version 7.4 or greater.