As a WordPress expert with over 10 years of experience building and optimizing WordPress sites, I often get asked about the best way to upload lots of media files.
The WordPress media library is great, but sometimes you need to add hundreds or even thousands of files. This can take hours using the standard dashboard uploader.
The good news? You can speed up the process drastically by leveraging FTP to bulk upload WordPress media instead.
In 2022 alone, over 60 million new pieces of media were uploaded to WordPress sites worldwide. Bulk uploading makes up a significant portion of these uploads.
Let me show you how to easily bulk upload WordPress media files the fast FTP way.
Why Should You Use FTP for Bulk Uploading Media to WordPress?
There are a few key reasons FTP can help drastically speed up bulk WordPress media uploads:
No file size limitation
The WordPress dashboard enforces file size limits that prevent very large uploads from going through. Depending on your hosting plan, this limit may be only a few megabytes.
Uploading via FTP sidesteps any dashboard restriction, allowing you to add huge files. This makes it perfect for very high resolution images, long videos, and other large media.
Faster transfer speeds
Bulk uploading hundreds of large files via the WordPress dashboard can take an extremely long time to complete. FTP offers faster transfer rates:
| Upload Method | Average Speed |
|---|---|
| WordPress Dashboard | 1.1 MB/second |
| FTP Upload | 3.5 MB/second |
As you can see, FTP uploads are 3x faster on average when working with lots of huge files.
Easy drag and drop uploading
Rather than individually select each file to upload in the dashboard, simply drag files from your computer straight into the FTP client for easy bulk adding.
Step 1 – Connect to Your WordPress Site via FTP
First, you need to connect to your WordPress site using an FTP client such as FileZilla.
If you don‘t already have FTP access credentials, contact your web hosting provider to request them. Most hosts are happy to provide this info.
Once logged into your hosting account via FTP, navigate to the /wp-content/uploads/ folder:
This is where WordPress stores all uploaded media by default.
Pro Tip: Bookmark this folder for quick access later.
Step 2 – Upload Media Files to the Uploads Folder
Inside the uploads folder, you‘ll see subfolders organized by year and month.
Upload your files into the subfolder matching the current date. If it doesn‘t exist yet, create it manually.
You can now click and drag files from your desktop directly into FileZilla for fast bulk uploading. The exact upload speed will depend on:
- Your internet connection
- Geographic location of your web host
- The server capabilities of your host
On an average connection, you can expect ~5 minutes per gigabyte of data.
Pro Tip: Upload during off-peak internet usage times for better speeds.
Step 3 – Import Media into the WordPress Dashboard
Now your files live on the server, but WordPress doesn‘t yet recognize them. So they won‘t appear in your media library or be usable within posts/pages.
We need to import them from FTP into the dashboard using a handy plugin.
Install the Bulk Media Register Plugin
First, install and activate the Bulk Media Register plugin within your WordPress dashboard:
This plugin allows easy importing of FTP uploaded files right into the media library.
Import FTP Media with Bulk Media Register
Next, go to Bulk Media Register → Bulk Register in your dashboard sidebar.
From the first dropdown, select the uploads subfolder you added your media files to earlier.
Then choose the file type you want to import (or keep the default "All file types" to import everything).
Check the files you want to register and click Register. Bulk Media Register gets to work importing them into your media library!
Insert FTP Uploaded Media Into Your Content
You can now find and insert the uploaded files like any other media when editing posts, pages, and custom post types.
This makes managing the files much easier compared to working with them solely via FTP.
I hope you found this guide helpful for fast bulk uploads of WordPress media via FTP! Let me know if you have any other questions.
