Custom Upload Dir

Description

Ever opened your uploads folder over FTP and wondered which post an image belongs to?

Custom Upload Dir lets you choose a folder structure that fits your site. Keep each post’s images together, group files by category or author, or separate PDFs from photos. Your files become easier to find on the server and easier to work with when making backups or moving your site.

Set up a path template once, then upload through WordPress as usual. Placeholders such as %postname% and %category% are filled in automatically for each new upload. You can combine them with ordinary folder names to create your own structure.

A few useful examples

Suppose you upload sunflowers.jpg to a post called “Summer in the garden”, published in July 2026 and filed under “Gardening”. These templates would put it in:

• A folder for each post: /%postname%/ → /summer-in-the-garden/sunflowers.jpg
• Year, month, then post: /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%/ → /2026/07/summer-in-the-garden/sunflowers.jpg
• Category, then post: /%category%/%postname%/ → /gardening/summer-in-the-garden/sunflowers.jpg
• Separate folders for file extensions: /%file_ext%/ → /jpg/sunflowers.jpg. A PDF would go in /pdf/.

These paths sit inside your site’s upload folder, usually wp-content/uploads. Post folders use the post’s URL slug, so a title such as “Summer in the garden” becomes summer-in-the-garden.

Make the structure your own

• Build paths from post slugs, IDs, dates, authors, the person uploading, file extensions and file types.
• Use categories, tags or your own custom taxonomies as folder names.
• Keep category hierarchies as subfolders, flatten them into a single folder name, or use just the top-level or most specific categories.
• Check example paths for your posts on the settings page before uploading files.
• Upload through the block editor or Media Library as usual.
• Add your own placeholders with a little PHP, if you need something specific to your site.

Start under Settings → Custom Upload Dir. Choose a default template, save it, and use the preview to check example destinations.

Different folders for posts, pages and Media Library uploads

Under Templates by parent post type, you can choose a different destination for uploads to Posts, Pages or a custom post type. The “parent” is the post or page you are uploading to. Each type has three choices:

• Use default: use the main template at the top of the settings page.
• Custom template: use a different template for this type. Leave the template empty to store files directly in the upload folder, without subfolders.
• Leave to WordPress: let WordPress choose the destination using its Media settings and any other upload plugins.

For example, keep Posts on Use default with /%year%/%monthnum%/, and give Pages the custom template /pages/%postname%/. An image uploaded to your “About” page would go in /pages/about/, while post uploads would keep their dated folders.

Uploads without a parent controls files uploaded directly through Media Library → Add New. It has the same three choices. For example, /library/%current_user_id%/ keeps these files together in folders for each uploader. Attaching a file to a post later does not move it.

All of these rules start on Use default, so upgrading does not change your destinations. Configure only the rules you want to use.

Folders by author or uploader ID

Use %author_id% for the post author’s numeric ID and %current_user_id% for the person uploading. They can differ when an editor uploads to another author’s post. For example, if user 12 uploads to a post by user 7, /authors/%author_id%/uploads-by/%current_user_id%/ becomes /authors/7/uploads-by/12/.

For Media Library uploads, use %current_user_id%: there is no parent post author, so %author_id% is left out. Uploads without a logged-in user leave out %current_user_id% too.

Choose the post date or the upload date

Use /%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/ for the post’s date, or /%upload_year%/%upload_month%/%upload_day%/ for the date the file is uploaded. Upload dates follow the timezone in your WordPress settings.

For example, an image uploaded on October 13, 2026 to a post dated March 5, 2019 goes in /2019/03/05/ with the post-date template, or /2026/10/13/ with the upload-date template. If there is no dated parent post, both templates use the upload date.

Existing files stay put. The template applies to new uploads; changing it does not move old files or change their URLs. Uploads made directly to the Media Library have no post, so post-specific parts of the template are left out. This organizes the actual files on your server; it does not add virtual folders to the Media Library screen.

Created by Ulf Benjaminsson.

Additional Info

Copyright (C) 2007-2026 Ulf Benjaminsson

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA