Exclude Image Thumbnails From UpdraftPlus Backups

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Reviewers are uniformly happy, saying it shrinks backup sizes and fixes failing UpdraftPlus backups, and several wish it were a built-in UpdraftPlus feature.

1. ★★★★★ Jos Klever

   4.2y ago

   I found the code in your plugin via a tip in the #sustainability channel of WP Slack, so I tested it on a website that wasn’t able to do a full backup for over a year now (due to a bad host). By filtering the thumbnails out, I was finally successful in making a full backup again. For sustainability this should actually be an option in UpdraftPlus. Thank you for saving time and disk space!

   Read on wp.org ↗
2. ★★★★★ Bjarne Oldrup

   5.1y ago

   I was attempting to reduce my sites backup sizes, to ease day to day administration, and from a sustainability perspective. All data transfers and hot storage uses energy – there is a carbon footprint to those backups. Excluding themes and plugins that I might as well get from WordPress.org in a rare restore situation, helped a lot. But those many WordPress image variants were a real eyesore. Even with a lean theme, there is at least 6 different variants/thumbnails of each image. Exclude Image Thumbnails From UpdraftPlus Backups did away with those images unnecessary in the backup, making it so much smaller, faster to backup and friendlier to the enviroment. Bonus tip: I chose to exclude all webp images from the backup as well. Those are in my case generated from the original jpg or png images, for even speedier load times. I would be able to re-generate those easily if restoring my site. Obviously you shouldn’t exclude webp if you upload these manually to the media library… Highly recommended.

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3. ★★★★★ argosmedia

   5.3y ago

   This is a great plugin. I always had Updraft complaining about resources, and lots of backups that failed partly or completely. Now it runs smoothly and without errors. The feaure this plugin adds to Updraft should be a standard feature of Updraft itself. It’s a must have, simply as that. I was considering to stop using Updraft, although I use it on dozens of sites. But now I can continue using it. Thanks to this litle gem!

   Read on wp.org ↗
4. ★★★★★ dustrider99

   5.5y ago

   Literally a miracle. Was next to impossible to reliably create backups for one of my sites due to so many images. This plugin makes using Updraft possible. THANK YOU!

   Read on wp.org ↗
5. ★★★★★ sqez

   5.7y ago

   Didn’t try to restore and recreate thumbnails but for now I’m happy with the space savings. Thanks!

   Read on wp.org ↗
6. ★★★★★ Jimmy Lee

   6.1y ago

   Saves Time! Saves Space! Thanks!

   Read on wp.org ↗
7. ★★★★★ madmax4ever

   6.2y ago

   Hello, Thanks to this plugin, I now have a backup lighter and thus quicker to do! I now use a version I modified on my own to exclude also cropped thumbnails and webp images BUT keep “thumbnails like named” files inside plugins and themes (just to be sure, as basically they can be original files and not a thumbnail version of on other file). Combined with Dynamic Image Resizer (but a “modified and extended” plugin version) I got my winning duet when restoring a site. Great work. This topic was modified 6 years ago by Jan Dembowski. Reason: Deleted link This topic was modified 6 years ago by madmax4ever.

   Read on wp.org ↗
8. ★★★★★ Cyberchicken

   7.0y ago

   Thumbnails are hardlinked in worpress content (pages, posts and so on). If you make a restore on a blank wordpress from a backupset made with this plugin the thumbnails are not going to be requested and created by the code. You have to trigger the reconstruction with one of the free plugins that do that. Great plugin!

   Read on wp.org ↗

Recent releases and news for this plugin

1. — Version 1.0.4 Updated assets. 1.0.4
2. — Version 1.0.3 IMPROVED – Support WebP and AVIF fieltypes, props @josklever. 1.0.3
3. — Version 1.0.2 IMPROVED – Regex update to prevent files with dimensions at the end of the file name from being filtered. 1.0.2
4. — Version 1.0.1 IMPROVED – Regex filtering. FIXED – README content. 1.0.1
5. — Version 1.0.0 Initial release. 1.0.0

Automated install-time checks, tested on PHP 8.1.12 · WP 6.7

Growth timeline

Install-tier crossings we have observed, and how long each tier took to outgrow

1. 2024-12-30 5K+ → 4K+ down after 1 days in tier
2. 2024-12-29 4K+ → 5K+ up after 60 days in tier
3. 2024-10-30 5K+ → 4K+ down after 3 days in tier
4. 2024-10-27 4K+ → 5K+ up after 94 days in tier
5. 2024-07-25 5K+ → 4K+ down after 11 days in tier
6. 2024-07-14 4K+ → 5K+ up after 210 days in tier
7. 2023-12-17 5K+ → 4K+ down after 1 days in tier
8. 2023-12-16 4K+ → 5K+ up after 1 days in tier

Competes with

The plugins that solve the same job, ranked by shared tags then reach, closest match first. The letter on the right is each plugin's health grade (A best, F worst).

• All-in-One WP Migration and Backup 5M+ installs · 4.5★ · 1 shared tag A
• UpdraftPlus: WP Backup & Migration Plugin 3M+ installs · 4.8★ · 1 shared tag A
• Jetpack – WP Security, Backup, Speed, & Growth 3M+ installs · 3.8★ · 1 shared tag A
• Duplicator – Backups & Migration Plugin – Cloud Backups, Scheduled Backups, & More 1M+ installs · 4.9★ · 1 shared tag A
• ManageWP Worker 1M+ installs · 4.6★ · 1 shared tag A
• WPvivid — Backup, Migration & Staging 900K+ installs · 4.9★ · 1 shared tag A

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Exclude Image Thumbnails From UpdraftPlus Backups: 4K+ active installs, 5.0★ (11 reviews). Plugin Pulse (WP Mayor), as of 2026-08-29. https://plugins.wpmayor.com/plugin/de-updraftplus-backup-exclude-image-thumbnails