How to Regenerate Thumbnails in WordPress? (2 Methods Explained)

Thumbnails are the visuals or, say, images of your WordPress website, offering a quick glimpse into your content. But what happens when those visuals don’t show up? The reason behind this can be you changing the theme or image without regenerating their thumbnails.

You can regenerate thumbnails using the reGenerate WordPress plugin and using WP-CLI. In this blog, we will dive into both of those methods to ensure the site’s visual consistency. We’ll also dive into the best practices WordPress developers follow to manage thumbnails. But before that, let’s understand thumbnails to begin with.

What are Thumbnails in WordPress?

A thumbnail is a smaller version of larger images that WordPress automatically generates. Thumbnails in WordPress are also often referred to as “featured images”. They are primarily used as visual representations for blog posts, pages, or custom post types. 

WordPress allows you to set the dimensions of these thumbnails in the Settings > Media section of the WordPress dashboard“.

Key Points About Thumbnails in WordPress

Thumbnails play a crucial role in enhancing the visual appeal and user experience of your WordPress website. Let’s explore the key points for better understanding:

• Featured Image: Thumbnails are often referred to as “Featured Images“.   
• Purpose: They provide a quick visual overview of the content and improve the overall appearance of your website.   
• Automatic Generation: WordPress automatically creates thumbnails when you upload an image. It helps display images without loading the full-size version, improving page load times and performance.
• Customization: You can customize the dimensions and names of thumbnail sizes to suit your needs.   
• Display: How thumbnails are displayed on your website depends on your theme’s design. They can appear in blog post listings, archives, search results, or other areas.   

By understanding the role of thumbnails in WordPress, you can ensure that your site looks visually appealing. Now, let’s understand why it’s important to regenerate thumbnails in WordPress.

Why Regenerate Thumbnails in WordPress?

Regenerating thumbnails is essential for maintaining optimal image display and performance on your WordPress website. Here are some common reasons why you might need to regenerate them:

• Theme Changes: Different WordPress themes often have different requirements for image sizes. When you switch to a new theme, it may define new dimensions for thumbnails, medium-sized, and large images. Regenerating thumbnails ensures that all your existing images adjust to the new theme’s specifications.
• Image Changes: If you change the image dimensions, WordPress will use these new sizes for images uploaded afterwards. However, existing images will still have the old dimensions. Regenerating thumbnails updates all uploaded images to match the new dimensions, ensuring a consistent look.
• Improve Performance: Properly sized thumbnails reduce the load on your server and improve page load times. By regenerating thumbnails, you can ensure each image is displayed at its optimal size, enhancing WordPress site performance.
• Broken Thumbnails: Sometimes, thumbnails may not generate due to various issues such as plugin conflicts or theme errors. Regenerating thumbnails can fix these broken or featured images missing by restoring the visual elements of your site.
• Image Uploads: When you import images from an external source, the imported images might not have the correct thumbnail sizes. Regenerating thumbnails ensures that all imported images are resized according to your current settings.
• Improve SEO: Optimizing images can improve your site’s SEO. Regenerating thumbnails ensures images meet the required file sizes, contributing to search engine rankings.

These reasons clearly indicate the importance of regenerating thumbnails in WordPress. By regenerating thumbnails, WordPress development experts can maintain visual aesthetics and improve performance. Now, let’s dive into how you can regenerate thumbnails in the next section.

How to Regenerate Thumbnails in WordPress?

Regenerating thumbnails in WordPress is useful if you’ve changed your theme, added new image sizes, or need to fix broken thumbnails. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you regenerate thumbnails using plugins and WP-CLI:

Method 1: Using reGenerate Thumbnails Plugin

This free plugin is a user-friendly option for regenerating thumbnails. Here’s how to use it:

Step 1: Go to your WordPress admin dashboard and navigate to Plugins > Add New.

Step 2: Search for “reGenerate Thumbnails Advanced”, then install and activate the plugin.

Step 3: After activation, go to Tools > Regenerate Thumbnails Advanced.

Step 4: Choose the option to regenerate thumbnails for all images or just featured images. You can also customize the thumbnail list by adding additional sizes.

Step 5: Click the Regenerate Thumbnails button. The plugin will start processing and regenerating all existing images in your media library to fit your theme’s image sizes.

The plugin includes a progress bar to track its progress and will provide feedback once the regeneration is complete. This method is ideal for users who prefer a visual interface and ease of use.

Method 2: Regenerate Thumbnails Using WP-CLI

WP-CLI is a command-line interface for WordPress that allows you to manage your WordPress site from the command line. To regenerate thumbnails using WP-CLI, follow these steps:

Step 1: Ensure you have WP-CLI installed on your server. You can check if it’s available by running wp –info in your terminal.

Step 2: Connect to your WordPress site using SSH keys or a terminal to access the WP-CLI environment.

Step 3: To regenerate all thumbnails, run the following command:

wp media regenerate

Press “y” (yes) to confirm regeneration when prompted.

Step 4: To regenerate all thumbnails without confirmation, execute the command:

wp media regenerate --yes

Step 5: To regenerate specific thumbnails, specify the IDs of the images you want to regenerate:

wp media regenerate <image_id1> <image_id2> …

Replace <image_id1>, <image_id2>, etc. with the actual IDs of the images you want to update. Note that you must separate IDs with spaces.

WP-CLI is particularly useful for large sites as it can handle the process more efficiently than some plugins. However, using WP-CLI requires some technical knowledge and comfort with the command line. If you want help with maintaining your site or want to build a well-designed and robust site, consider hiring WordPress developers.

Best Practices for Managing Thumbnails in WordPress

Effective thumbnail management is crucial for optimizing website performance and user experience. Here are some key best practices:

• Identify Necessary Sizes: Determine the specific thumbnail dimensions required by your theme and plugins.
• Avoid Excessive Sizes: Generating unnecessary thumbnail sizes can consume storage space and slow down your website.
• Use Responsive Images: Ensure your thumbnails are responsive to different screen sizes for optimal display.
• Optimize Image Quality: Reduce image file sizes without compromising visual quality. To do so, use plugins like Smush, EWWW Image Optimizer, etc.
• Consider Image Formats: Choose appropriate image formats (JPEG, PNG, or WebP) based on image content.
• Improve Loading Speed: Implement image caching to reduce server load and improve website performance.
• Utilize CDN: Consider using Content Delivery Network (CDN) to distribute image files globally.
• Regenerate When Necessary: Regenerate thumbnails after theme changes, plugin updates, or image optimization.
• Delete Unused Thumbnails: Remove unnecessary thumbnail files to free up disk space.

By following these best practices, WordPress development services ensure that your site handles images efficiently. It provides a better user experience and keeps your WordPress site performance optimized from a thumbnail point of view.

FAQs About Regenerating Thumbnails in WordPress

Conclusion

Regenerating thumbnails in WordPress is a simple and valuable aspect of maintaining the visual integrity and performance of your website. You can either use the plugin method or use WP-CLI to regenerate thumbnails.

• Choose the plugin method if: You prefer a visual interface and want to avoid technical complexities.
• Choose the WP-CLI method if: You are comfortable with the command line interface and prioritize speed and efficiency.

By choosing a method that fits your needs and preferences, you can effectively regenerate plugins. If you need further help with development or optimizing your site, hire WordPress developers.