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Free Plugin by cornershop v1.5.9

Media Deduper

Save disk space and bring some order to the chaos of your media library by removing and preventing duplicate files.

Media Deduper

The facts

Rating
3.8★ from 44
Active installs
9k+
Price
Free
Last updated
3 Dec 2025
Added
Oct 2015
Requires WP
4.3
Tested up to
WP 6.9.7
Downloads
177,411

Our analysis

AI-assisted

Media Deduper is a WordPress plugin designed to identify and remove duplicate images and attachments from your media library. After installation, it creates an index of your media files, allowing you to manage duplicates through a dedicated 'Manage Duplicates' page. The plugin automatically updates the index with new uploads, streamlining the process of maintaining a clutter-free media library.

This plugin is suitable for users who need to optimise their media library by eliminating duplicates, especially those who frequently upload images. It includes a 'Smart Delete' feature that protects featured images from being removed, ensuring that your posts remain visually intact.

Best for: This plugin is best for WordPress users looking to clean up their media library by removing duplicate files.

What it does well

  • Identifies and removes duplicate images and attachments
  • Creates an index of media files for easier management
  • Includes a 'Smart Delete' feature for featured images
  • Automatically updates the index with new uploads
  • Free to use from the WordPress.org directory

Where it falls short

  • Can result in permanent data loss if not used carefully
  • Limited to identifying duplicates based on file data, not metadata
  • No dedicated support unless using Media Deduper Pro

Verdict

Media Deduper offers a straightforward solution for managing duplicate media files, but users should exercise caution to avoid data loss.

From the developer

cornershop's own description of Media Deduper, lightly tidied.

Media Deduper will find and eliminate duplicate images and attachments from your WordPress media library. After installing, you’ll have a new “Manage Duplicates” option in your Media section.

Before Media Deduper can identify duplicate assets, it will build an index of all the files in your media library, which can take some time. Once that’s done, however, Media Deduper automatically adds new uploads to its index, so you shouldn’t have to generate the index again.

Need faster indexing? Check out Media Deduper Pro.

Once up and running, Media Deduper provides you with a “Manage Duplicates” page listing all of your duplicate media files. The list makes it easy to see and delete duplicate files: delete one and its twin will disappear from the list because it’s then no longer a duplicate. Easy! By default, the list is sorted by file size, so you can focus on deleting the files that will free up the most space.

Use this plugin at your own risk. The plugin developers are not responsible for any lost data or site issues as a result of using this plugin.

Media Deduper comes with a “Smart Delete” option that prevents a post’s Featured Image from being deleted, even if that image is found to be a duplicate elsewhere on the site.

If a post has a featured image that’s a duplicate file, Smart Delete will re-assign that post’s image to an already-in-use copy of the image before deleting the duplicate so that the post’s appearance is unaffected. This feature only tracks Featured Images, and not images used in galleries, post bodies, shortcodes, meta fields, or anywhere else.

Looking for more features? Media Deduper Pro includes features for image fields from several popular plugins as well.

Note that duplicate identification is based on the data of the files themselves, not any titles, captions or other metadata you may have provided in the WordPress admin.

Media Deduper can differentiate between 1.) media items that are duplicates because the media files they link to have the same data and 2.) those that actually point to the same data file, which can happen with a plugin like WP Job Manager or Duplicate Post.

As with any plugin that can perform destructive operations on your database and/or files, using Media Deduper can result in permanent data loss if you’re not careful. Back up your data before you try out Media Deduper! Please!

Use this plugin at your own risk. The plugin developers are not responsible for any lost data or site issues as a result of using this plugin.

Need more support? Media Deduper Pro includes dedicated support from Cornershop Creative.

Requirements

Media Deduper requires PHP 7.0 or later.

Read the full description on the official page →

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