Hi Stephen,
You’re not alone. Over time, it’s easy for your WordPress Media Library to become full of unused files, and that can slow down your website or just make it more difficult to manage your media.
The good news is that you can delete unused files and images to free up storage space and keep your site running as fast as possible.
From your WordPress dashboard, go to: Media > Library. You can delete a single image, by clicking on the image, then choosing the “Delete Permanently” option at the bottom of the screen.
You should be prompted to confirm your choice via a popup notification. Click ‘OK’ to delete the file from your Media Library.
Now, if you have a lot of images to delete, it can become cumbersome to repeat this process again and again. So, you can also delete files and images in bulk. At the top of the Media Library page, click the “Bulk Select” button.
Next, select all the files you’d like to delete, then click the “Delete Permanently” button. Again, you should see a popup confirmation. Click ‘OK’ to permanently remove the selected images.
If you prefer a more automated approach, you might also check out the Media Cleaner plugin.
Once installed and activated, the Media Cleaner plugin scans your Media Library for files that aren’t actually being used in your site content, as well as any broken entries. They’re moved to an internal trash, where you can review the items before permanently deleting them.
We should stress that it’s a good idea to backup your WordPress site before using the Media Cleaner plugin, or manually deleting your media files.
Once you’ve cleaned up your Media Library, it’s much easier to delete unused files as you go, rather than waiting until things become unmanageable again. Consider repeating this process every month or so, or more frequently, if you publish a lot of content.
Hope this helps!