Join me as you explore the Media Library and ways to organize all your media.
You can add various types of media to your library, from photos, screenshots, audio,
PDF documents, spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations and more.
If you have a lot of media in your library, it might start feeling a bit disorganized
or intimidating to manage all your media.
You may be asking, isn't there a way to categorize your media?
Well the answer is yes, we are going to use a plugin to achieve this goal.
Let's make our way to Plugins and click on Add New.
I'm going to type "Media plugin organizer" in the search box and within a second or two
we will be able to choose from a variety of options.
I will be selecting an open source plugin called Media Library Organizer.
Media Library Organizer doesn't replace the look and feel of the Media Library, instead
it will enhance the WordPress user interface, adding key features needed for mass organization
as well as searching and filtering of media.
There are many other plugins to choose from in the Plugin Directory, for example, number
one WordPress Real Media Library, number two FileBird or number three Wicked Folders.
Let's go ahead and install the Media Library Organizer plugin and always remember to click
Activate.
When I return to the Media Library, you will see we now have a new left sidebar called
Media Categories and you have three options to add, edit and delete.
Due to the fact that I haven't created any categories, I only have the option to add
new categories and subcategories.
I'm going to go ahead and create a new category and name it Traveling.
Then I will click on Bulk Select and choose the appropriate images.
And once I've done that, I'm going to drag and drop them to the new category.
The second category that I want to create is going to be called Nature and once I've
created the folder, I will once again click on Bulk Select and then choose all the relevant
images I want to add to this category.
And once I've finished selecting all the media, I will drag and drop them to their new category
called Nature.
The third category I want to create is going to be called Lifestyle.
Now I will click on the category to add subcategories.
I will right click on my mouse, select Add Child and name my subcategories.
The first one is going to be called Exercise and the second one, Recipes.
Once I've done that, I will click on Bulk Select, choose the exercise images and drag
and drop them to their new category.
Lastly I want to create three more subcategories within Recipes.
The first category is going to be called Vegetarian, the second one Meat and the last one Breakfast.
Once I've created the subcategories, I will choose Bulk Select and drag and drop the
images to their respective categories.
So first breakfast, then my vegetarian options and then a meat dish.
And now you will see all the images in their categories.
The display of categories we see here is called tree view and is used for easy searching,
filtering and bulk categorization.
If you click on Unassigned, you will be able to view all the images or files that have
not yet been categorized.
If you right click on a category and decide to delete it, the images or files will merely
return to being unassigned.
As you have seen, using a media manager plugin can help you organize and feel more in control
of your site's media.