WP Offload Media 3.1 Released: Efficient Offloading and Performance Gains

WP Offload Media 3.1 improves performance for large sites and multisites while also setting the stage for new ways to monitor and manage offloaded media in the upcoming release of version 3.2.

⚡️ More Efficient Offloading

When a new image is uploaded to the Media Library, WordPress generates multiple image sizes—Thumbnail, Medium, Medium Large, and Large—in addition to other image sizes registered by themes or plugins. Any inefficiency in the processing of these images becomes increasingly harmful to performance as the media library grows, so we thought it deserved a closer look.

Before Version 3.1

Previously WP Offload Media would offload each generated image size as soon as it was created. This process involved reading and writing of the database as well as network requests for transferring each image size to cloud storage. While the time required to process individual image sizes was negligible for small sites, large sites with thousands of media items experienced a more noticeable slowdown.

Image offloading before WP Offload Media 3.1

After Version 3.1

WP Offload Media now waits until all image sizes have been generated for each media item before offloading all image sizes at once. The result is a more efficient approach that minimizes the overhead related to updating the database and transferring files to cloud storage.

Image offloading after WP Offload Media 3.1

⚙️ Other Performance Gains

Version 3.1 also includes a number of other changes that improve overall performance on both the front end and within WP Admin.

  • Front-end pages now load faster thanks to responsible registration of REST-API endpoints and a more targeted analysis of attachments when rewriting URLs.
  • The updating of multisite media statistics is now spread over time to prevent many subsites from performing calculations all at once.
  • Upgrade routines are now more performant especially for subsites.

And More

For a full list of new features, improvements, and bug fixes, see the 3.1 Changelog.

Next Up

Monitoring and managing your offloaded media is about to get a lot easier in WP Offload Media 3.2. The upcoming release will make use of the latest performance improvements in the form of a new Offloaded Status Indicator. This new component will provide a readily available breakdown of your offloaded (and not offloaded media) while providing one-click access to offload remaining items.

Until then, we want to hear your thoughts on this release. Let us know on Twitter or in the comments below.

About the Author

Kevin Hoffman Product Manager

Kevin Hoffman is a Sr. Product Manager at WP Engine where he is building WordPress plugins such as WP Migrate and WP Offload Media. With a background in user interface design and web development, he transitioned into product management at GiveWP and Delicious Brains before joining WP Engine in 2022. Kevin works remotely from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he lives with is wife and son.