Blinkimg Image Optimizer: Convert to WebP & AVIF, Compress Images, Same Quality

Description

Blinkimg compresses every image in your Media Library, with all its sizes, and makes WebP and AVIF copies. It keeps a private backup of every original, so Restore can bring it back. Visitors get the smaller copies through picture tags, on any server.

Why Blinkimg?

Your originals are safe. Before Blinkimg changes a file, it keeps a private backup of the original, and Restore restores it at no credit cost. Originals stay until you choose to delete them. You see the exact credits before a bulk run starts, and nothing goes to Blinkimg until you connect an account.

You can use it free, with no account. Choose This server and your own server’s GD or Imagick makes every file. It needs no account and no credits, and no image leaves your site. It uses your server’s CPU and memory, so Blinkimg’s engine is there when you want to keep that work off your server.

Features

Compress images

• New uploads, done for you. Blinkimg compresses each new image in the background, about 15 to 30 seconds after the upload finishes. Compress new uploads is on by default.
• Bulk optimize. Count your library, see the exact credits first, then optimize it in the background with Pause, Resume and Stop. It keeps going with the tab closed.
• Images your visitors see go first. Bulk optimize starts with the images your published posts and pages use, then takes the rest, newest first.
• Optimize one image or a selection. Use the Blinkimg column in the Media Library, the image details or the edit screen. Select up to 500 images in the list view and choose Optimize with Blinkimg in Bulk actions.
• Filter by status. Show only images that are Not optimized, Optimized, Already small, Failed or Excluded.
• History. Every bulk run with what it optimized, saved and cost, and the log of the last 20 runs. An opt-in email says when a run ends.
• Progress in the toolbar on every admin page, with Pause and Resume.
• Three quality levels. Auto keeps each image looking the same at a smaller size. High quality or Custom, from 1 to 100, if you want more.
• Choose the sizes. Pick which image sizes to optimize, and whether to compress the unscaled original upload WordPress keeps (on by default).
• A size limit for new uploads, from 320 to 10,000 px.
• One price per image. An image and all the sizes WordPress makes of it cost 1 credit to compress, 2 with WebP and 4 with WebP and AVIF. Thumbnails are free.
• 500 free credits every month. That covers 250 images a month with WebP copies.

WebP and AVIF

• WebP, AVIF or both, for JPEG and PNG images, each copy beside its image.
• Picture tags on any server. A browser that can show a copy gets it, and other browsers keep the original.
• Server rules on Apache and LiteSpeed. Blinkimg writes them in your uploads folder only, tests them with two tiny images and removes them if the test fails. On nginx, it shows the lines to add and tests them.
• CDN address. Add your pull CDN’s address in Settings, Delivery.
• Skip these pages, for a page whose layout needs the plain image. Add ?blinkimg=original to any address to see a page without the copies.
• Cache clearing for 11 cache plugins after you change delivery or restore images. An optional Cloudflare API token clears Cloudflare too.

Backups and disk space

• Every original kept. Blinkimg copies each original to a private backup folder before it changes the file.
• Compare shows the original beside the result, with a slider.
• Restore restores the original and uses no credits.
• Delete originals moves backups to a private bin that keeps them 7, 15 or 30 days, or until you empty it. Restore works until then.
• Space tab, in four pages. Overview shows the space you can free. Free space lists your optimized images, biggest original first. Bin brings originals back until it empties. Leftovers finds the originals of images you deleted from the Media Library.
• Find where it is used shows where your content uses an image.
• WebP only keeps one WebP file per image and updates your posts, page builder data, widgets and theme settings through WordPress’s own functions.
• Page check. After WebP only, Blinkimg reads up to 200 pages from your sitemap and lists any missing image, with Bring back for each.
• A guard for old links. When an old post asks for a file in the bin, Blinkimg brings the file back.

Metadata and alt text

• Remove EXIF metadata: the camera, date, GPS, copyright and author.
• Remove AI image metadata: AI tool names, prompts and the made-by-AI tag.
• sRGB colours, so an image looks the same in every browser.
• Alt text from clean image titles, only where an image has none. Fill missing alt text for older images, with a preview, and Remove alt text Blinkimg added.

Control

• Exclusions by folder, file name or size in KB. A skipped image costs no credits, and the Media Library says why.
• Who can optimize images: administrators only, administrators and editors, or anyone who can upload files.
• Multisite. One account and one set of settings for the whole network, or each site on its own, with a Sites table.

Tools

• Four pages: Improve images, Alt text, Maintenance and Undo Blinkimg.
• Create missing copies for images optimized before you asked for WebP or AVIF.
• Apply new settings to old images, from the backup.
• Rebuild image sizes your theme now uses but older images lack.
• Restore every original, and Delete WebP and AVIF copies for good, each behind a typed word, with Cancel.
• Reset background work when something is stuck.
• Export, import and reset settings. Import and Reset list every change before they save anything.

Logs and support

• Logs tab with a System card, Checks with Test again, and a log of problems kept 30 days.
• Copy diagnostics for a support request. Nothing is sent anywhere.
• Site Health: Blinkimg’s tests and a Blinkimg section in the Info tab.
• Verify plugin files against the list of hashes that came with this version.

Calm admin

• No redirect on activation, no ads and no review requests.
• Nothing goes to Blinkimg until you connect an account.
• Deactivate opens a short dialog that says what deactivating does, and asks nothing.

Two engines

Choose one in Settings, Compression:

• Blinkimg, the default, does the work on Blinkimg’s servers and makes better-looking, smaller files. It needs a free account and uses credits. Each image goes to Blinkimg over HTTPS and is deleted within 24 hours.
• This server makes the files with your server’s own GD or Imagick, in the background. It needs no account and no credits, and sends no image. It uses your server’s CPU and memory, which can slow your site.

Works with

• WooCommerce: product galleries, and the photo of each variation a shopper picks.
• Elementor: image widgets and galleries.
• The block editor and block themes: image, gallery and cover blocks.
• Apache, LiteSpeed, nginx and IIS. Picture tags work on all four. Server rules run on Apache and LiteSpeed, and on nginx with lines you add.
• WP Rocket, LiteSpeed Cache, W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache, WP Fastest Cache, SiteGround Optimizer, Breeze, Hummingbird, Cache Enabler, WP-Optimize and Super Page Cache: Blinkimg clears their cache after you change delivery or restore images.
• Cloudflare, with an optional API token.
• WP Rocket, LiteSpeed Cache, W3 Total Cache and Really Simple SSL in their usual settings, with Server rules.
• Multisite, with one account for the whole network or one for each site.
• PHP 7.4 and 8.5, tested on both.

External services

This plugin connects to the Blinkimg API (api.blinkimg.com), run by Blinkimg, to check your API key, to read your account’s credits and to optimize your images. Your API key goes only to api.blinkimg.com.

Nothing goes to Blinkimg until an administrator connects a Blinkimg account by pasting an API key on Media, Blinkimg. Then:

• When you connect, and at most once every 10 minutes while an administrator has the Blinkimg page open, the site sends its API key to api.blinkimg.com over HTTPS and receives the account’s plan and credits.
• When an administrator opens the Account tab, at most once every 10 minutes, the site sends its API key to api.blinkimg.com (GET /v1/usage/history) and receives the credits spent on each of the last 30 days, by this site’s key and by the whole account.
• When you connect, and again if its address changes, the site also sends its address (the host and path of its home URL, such as example.com/shop) so your Blinkimg dashboard can show which site uses which key.
• When you optimize an image, and for each new upload while Compress new uploads is on (it is on by default), the site sends the image file (never its name), the sizes WordPress makes and your settings. The file goes over HTTPS to Blinkimg’s storage on Cloudflare R2 (r2.cloudflarestorage.com), and the results come back the same way. Blinkimg deletes the file and its results within 24 hours.
• Before it starts a new upload’s run, the site reads your account (GET api.blinkimg.com/v1/usage, with your API key), at most once every 10 minutes. While a new upload waits for credits, it reads the account again at most every 30 minutes, for up to 7 days.
• During a bulk run, the site reads your account before it queues images, at most once every 10 minutes, and every 10 minutes while the run waits for credits.
• While it optimizes, the site reads Blinkimg’s public plan limits from api.blinkimg.com/v1/plans, at most once a day, without your key.
• Every request names your WordPress and PHP versions in the user agent.
• The site never sends your email, your visitors’ data, your posts or anything about your users.

Cloudflare’s API (api.cloudflare.com, run by Cloudflare) gets a call only when you add a Cloudflare token in Settings, Delivery. The token is optional and needs no Blinkimg account. Saving it sends the token to Cloudflare to check it, then clears one address, your site’s robots.txt, in your Cloudflare zone. After you change delivery, and about a minute after you restore images, the site clears your zone’s cache. Cloudflare’s terms: https://www.cloudflare.com/website-terms/ and privacy policy: https://www.cloudflare.com/privacypolicy/

With This server as the engine (Settings, Compression), your server makes every file, and no image goes to Blinkimg. A connected site still reads its account from api.blinkimg.com.

Blinkimg’s terms: https://blinkimg.com/terms
Blinkimg’s privacy policy: https://blinkimg.com/privacy

Site Health links to WordPress.org’s security key generator (api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/salt/) when your site’s AUTH_KEY or SECURE_AUTH_KEY is missing. The plugin never calls that address. It is a link an administrator may open, and opening it sends nothing from your site. WordPress.org’s privacy policy: https://wordpress.org/about/privacy/

Deactivating and deleting

Deactivating Blinkimg keeps everything. Visitors get your JPEG and PNG files until you activate Blinkimg again. Blinkimg takes its lines out of wp-content/uploads/.htaccess, and its background work waits while it is off: a bulk run or Move all originals to the bin goes on when you activate Blinkimg again. The bin deletes nothing while Blinkimg is off.

Deleting Blinkimg from the Plugins screen, or with wp plugin uninstall, removes on every site of a network its settings, your API key and account details, your Cloudflare token, its other options, cached answers and scheduled actions, its tables of daily figures, pacing and the log, its lines in wp-content/uploads/.htaccess and its test images folder. wp plugin delete, and deleting the folder by hand, run no uninstall, so they remove only the files.

It keeps the private backup folder, the bin with its files, every WebP and AVIF copy, and Blinkimg’s records of them, so a reinstall can restore your images. To remove those too, turn on “Delete backups and copies when Blinkimg is deleted” in Settings, Advanced, and type DELETE. Blinkimg then deletes the backups, the files in its bin and the copies its records prove it wrote, then those records. It deletes nothing else. An image it is working on at that moment keeps its files and records, and an image with a file it cannot delete keeps its records. Images that use WebP only keep their WebP files, because those files are the image, and WordPress’s image editor keeps its files to undo an edit. On a network, each site’s own setting decides for that site.

For developers

Blinkimg adds a read-only blinkimg field to each image in the REST API (wp/v2/media). The field lists the WebP and AVIF copies Blinkimg serves for each size, so a headless site can build its own picture tags. The field holds file URLs only. They use your CDN address when you set one. sizes is empty when Blinkimg serves no copy of the image: delivery is off, the image has no copies, or it uses WebP only.

Every action and filter Blinkimg fires is listed, with its parameters, in includes/HOOKS.md in the plugin folder. The field works from version 0.1.0, and so does every hook there. A renamed hook keeps its old name working for two releases, with a notice.

Logs and diagnostics

The Logs tab shows what your site runs, whether Blinkimg can work, and what went wrong. Checks tests the connection to Blinkimg, background work, WordPress’s request to its own address, Delivery and other image optimizers. Verify compares each Blinkimg file with the list of hashes that came with this version. Tools, Site Health shows Blinkimg’s tests.

The log keeps problems for 30 days and at most 10,000 lines. It never holds your API key, an email address, a site address, a file name or a path. Copy diagnostics gives you one text for a support request, and nothing is sent anywhere.

Source code

The compiled admin script in build/ is built from the readable sources in src/, which ship in the plugin. To rebuild it: run npm ci, then npm run build, with Node 22 or later.

Credits

Bundles Action Scheduler 4.2.0 (woocommerce/action-scheduler, GPL-3.0-or-later) in vendor-prefixed/action-scheduler/, with its licence.

Support

Ask in the plugin’s support forum on wordpress.org. Report a security problem privately to sahadat@blinkimg.com.