Description
MetaSlider Gallery is the ultimate WordPress gallery plugin. You can build an image gallery. You can also show your images, videos, and slideshows in a beautiful lightbox. Plus, MetaSlider Gallery is deeply integrated with the MetaSlider Slideshow plugin so you can create stylish sliders.
The MetaSlider Gallery plugin allows you to create beautiful image galleries that can be placed anywhere on your WordPress site. You can also show a wide variety of media inside a lightbox, including these:
- Images
- Image galleries
- Videos hosted on WordPress sites
- Vimeo videos
- YouTube Videos
- Featured images
- MetaSlider slideshows
Create stylish image galleries
MetaSlider Gallery allows you to create stylish image galleries that work with the block editor, the Classic Editor, and any page-builder. To create a new gallery, find the “Galleries” screen.
There are five layouts available for your image gallery: Grid, Masonry, Justified, Carousel, and Showcase.
- Grid: Show your images in rows and columns. Each row and column will be the same size.
- Masonry: Show the images in a grid-like layout, but this approach has a flexible placement that fills gaps left by shorter items.
- Justified: This allows each image to keep its original aspect ratio, so it won’t always be possible to fill each row edge-to-edge.
- Carousel: Show one main image at the time. The visitor can use arrows or the thumbnail navigation to browse to the next image.
- Showcase: Shows one image at a time. In this layout, the arrows and the thumbnail navigation are both underneath the image.
Every layout is responsive, so the gallery reflows to fit phones and tablets without a separate mobile setting. Galleries can be placed with a block, a shortcode, or your page-builder’s widget, which means the same gallery can be reused in several places rather than rebuilt each time.
Grid and Justified galleries have their own Height setting, Carousel galleries can show a Frame Border so the carousel edge stays visible against a matching page background, and thumbnail navigation is available for browsing between images. Responsive column controls let you set how many columns appear at each screen size.
See how to create WordPress image galleries.
Import images from wherever they already are
Building a gallery does not have to mean uploading files one at a time. MetaSlider Gallery takes images from four sources:
- Upload: add new image files directly while building the gallery.
- Media Library: choose images already in WordPress.
- Server folder import: pull in images that already exist on your server.
- ZIP import: bring in a batch of images from a single ZIP file.
The last two matter most when you are migrating an existing image collection into WordPress rather than starting from nothing.
Style every image in a gallery at once
The Image Styles panel applies one visual treatment to every image in a gallery, so a portfolio, product gallery or event gallery shares the same look without editing images individually.
- Filters: 14 presets including Noir, Silver, Vintage, Golden Hour, Warm, Cool, Vivid, Dramatic and Negative.
- Shape and framing: rounded corners and borders, to match your theme.
- Depth: shadow and opacity controls.
- Transform: rotate or flip images for more stylized layouts.
Preview the gallery while you build it
The gallery editor has “Preview” and “Arrange” toggles. Preview shows the gallery as a visitor will see it, with Desktop and Mobile views for checking responsive layouts; Arrange is where you reorder images and edit them. You can adjust layout, lightbox behavior, button styles, colors and captions and see the result immediately, instead of saving and reloading a separate page each time.
Load large galleries in batches
Grid, Masonry and Justified galleries can reveal images in batches with a “Load More” button, and you choose how many appear at a time. A gallery with hundreds of images does not have to load all of them before the page is usable.
Order images without dragging them
As well as drag-and-drop, images can be sorted automatically: newest first, oldest first, filename A to Z, filename Z to A, or random.
Use different image sizes in the gallery and the lightbox
Gallery thumbnails and the lightbox can use different image sizes, with their own width, height and crop settings. Thumbnails stay small and quick to load while the lightbox still opens a high-resolution version.
Edit captions quickly
Each image has its own caption editing window. A caption can be typed directly, or taken from the image’s existing WordPress media caption or description, so captions you have already written are reused rather than retyped.
Turn a slideshow into a gallery
An existing MetaSlider slideshow can be converted into a gallery, so images you have already arranged once do not have to be collected again.
Show your single images in a lightbox
You can really enhance your WordPress media with lightboxes. Visitors can view your images or videos and then open them inside a modal. This can make the image or video larger and also darken the background so it’s easier to focus on the media.
MetaSlider Gallery allows you to add lightboxes to images in your WordPress post content. You can choose to automatically add the lightbox to all images, or you can do it manually via the “Enlarge on click” setting. This works with both the block editor and the Classic Editor. You can also use this lightbox with page-builders such as Elementor, Divi, and Beaver Builder, thanks to the CSS feature.
Click here to see more lightboxes with images.
Show your image galleries in a lightbox
MetaSlider Gallery allows you to add lightboxes to image galleries in your WordPress post content. You can choose to automatically add the lightbox to all images, or you can do it manually via the “Enlarge on click” setting. Each image in your gallery can get its own lightbox setting.
Because the setting is per-image, a gallery can mix the two: product shots that open full-size, and decorative images that do nothing when clicked.
Click here to see more lightboxes with image galleries.
Show your videos in a lightbox
You can use the MetaSlider Gallery plugin to show videos inside a lightbox modal window. The MetaSlider Gallery plugin supports videos hosted inside your WordPress media library. You can use MetaSlider Gallery to showcase your .MP4, .WebM, and .MOV videos.
Videos in a lightbox play at full size against a darkened background, which suits demos and interviews better than a small inline player. Because the file is served from your own media library, playback does not depend on a third-party service and there is no external branding on the player.
Click here to see more lightboxes with local videos.
Show your YouTube videos in a lightbox
MetaSlider Gallery allows you to add lightboxes to YouTube videos in your WordPress post content. You can choose to automatically add the lightbox to all YouTube images. You can use many different YouTube URL formats. There’s a list of formats here.
Click here to see more lightboxes with YouTube videos.
Show your Vimeo videos in a lightbox
MetaSlider Gallery allows you to add lightboxes to Vimeo videos in your WordPress post content. You can choose to automatically add the lightbox to all Vimeo videos, or enable it one video at a time. As with YouTube, the video only loads when a visitor opens the lightbox, so a page with several videos on it is not loading all of them up front.
Click here to see more lightboxes with Vimeo videos.
Add a lightbox to your MetaSlider Slideshows
The MetaSlider Gallery plugin connects deeply with the MetaSlider Slideshow plugin.
A slideshow allows you to create a beautiful showcase of images or videos for your visitors. You can enhance your slideshow with a lightbox. Visitors can view your slideshow and then click on an image and see a larger, higher-resolution version of the image. Often the background is darkened so that the viewer’s eyes can focus on the image alone.
Click here to see more lightboxes with MetaSlider slideshows.
Design Options for MetaSlider Gallery
The MetaSlider Gallery plugin has a wide range of design options to allow to customize the lightbox effect. You can customize the lightbox background and overlay appearance. You can choose the navigation icons (close, previous, next arrows) that appear in all lightboxes. You can modify the “Open in lightbox window” option that can be added to media.
These settings are global, so the lightbox looks the same wherever it appears — in a gallery, on a single image, or over a MetaSlider slideshow — and you set it once rather than per gallery.
Click here to see lightbox design options.
MetaSlider Gallery Pro
MetaSlider Gallery Pro adds features for galleries that are doing a job beyond decoration:
- Selectable download sizes: visitors choose which image size to download.
- Image likes: visitors can favorite images from the lightbox toolbar.
- Image protection: discourage casual copying of your images.
- Social sharing controls: choose which networks appear in the share options.
- Autoplay styling: set the color of the autoplay progress bar.
- Per-gallery Pro settings: apply Pro settings to individual galleries and slideshows.
Screenshots
Blocks
This plugin provides 1 block.
- MetaSlider Gallery Display a MetaSlider Gallery.
Installation
To install the plugin automatically:
- Through WordPress admin, use the menu: Plugins > Add New.
- Search for MetaSlider Gallery.
- Click on install then click the activation link.
To install the plugin manually:
- Download the plugin .zip file from this page.
- Through WordPress admin, use the menu: Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin.
- Choose the .zip file and click “Install Now”, then activate the plugin.
After activating
- Go to the “Galleries” screen to build your first gallery.
- Lightbox settings for existing images live under the MetaSlider Gallery settings, where you can turn the lightbox on for all images at once or leave it to the per-image “Enlarge on click” option.
FAQ
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What can I show in a lightbox?
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Images, image galleries, videos in your WordPress media library (.MP4, .WebM and .MOV), YouTube videos, Vimeo videos, featured images, and MetaSlider slideshows.
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What gallery layouts are available?
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Five: Grid, Masonry, Justified, Carousel and Showcase. Grid keeps every cell the same size; Masonry fills the gaps left by shorter images; Justified keeps each image’s original aspect ratio; Carousel and Showcase both show one image at a time, with the navigation beside the image or underneath it.
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Do I need the MetaSlider Slideshow plugin as well?
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No. MetaSlider Gallery builds galleries and adds lightboxes on its own. If you do have MetaSlider Slideshow installed, the two connect, and you can add a lightbox to a slideshow so visitors can open a larger version of any slide.
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Does it work with page builders?
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Yes. The lightbox works with the block editor and the Classic Editor, and with page-builders including Elementor, Divi and Beaver Builder via the CSS feature.
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How do I add a lightbox to every image at once?
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There is a setting to add the lightbox to all images automatically, so you do not have to edit posts one by one. If you would rather choose per image, leave it off and use the “Enlarge on click” setting on the individual image instead.
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Can I use it with a gallery of several hundred images?
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Yes. Grid, Masonry and Justified layouts support a “Load More” button that reveals images in batches you configure, so the page does not have to load the whole gallery at once. You can also set a smaller image size for the gallery thumbnails than for the lightbox.
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Can I apply the same look to every image in a gallery?
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Yes. The Image Styles panel applies filters, rounded corners, borders, shadows, opacity and rotate or flip effects to every image in the gallery at once, rather than image by image.
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What library is used in MetaSlider Gallery?
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We rely on lightGallery which is a lightweight, modular, JavaScript image and video lightbox gallery. Find out more at their website. lightGallery is built with most modern technologies available to achieve the best performance and quality. It supports all modern browsers including IE 10 and above. lightGallery is highly optimized for mobile and tablets so you get a native look-and-feel, plus best performance.
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Is MetaSlider Gallery ready for mobile?
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Yes, MetaSlider Gallery is highly optimized for mobile. MetaSlider Gallery supports multiple touch gestures to perform specific actions such as pinch to zoom in, zoom out, double tap to zoom, drag or swipe to navigate to different slides, vertical swipe or drag to close etc. MetaSlider Gallery uses a CSS-only approach for resizing images and videos to achieve maximum performance on mobile devices.
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Is MetaSlider Gallery ready for touch gestures?
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Yes, MetaSlider Gallery supports touch and swipe navigation on touchscreen devices, as well as mouse drag for desktops. This allows users to navigate between slides by either swiping or dragging on the media.
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Is MetaSlider Gallery accessible?
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Yes, MetaSlider Gallery supports keyboard navigation to navigate to different slides. You can use the escape key to close the gallery. The plugin uses recommended accessibility HTML markups to make the galleries accessible for keyboard and screen reader users.
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Does WordPress have a built-in lightbox?
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Yes, but it’s more limited than the lightbox offered by MetaSlider Gallery. WordPress 6.4 gave us a new lightbox feature that can be used with images and photo galleries. You can add lightboxes inside WordPress posts. Inside each image or gallery block, you’ll be able to find the “Expand on click” option. When visitors see this image in your post, it will probably appear smaller than the full-size version of the image. Thanks to the lightbox feature, they’ll be able to click and see a much larger, expanded version of the image. Find out more here.
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Is there a direct link to install MetaSlider Gallery?
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Yes, use the phrase metasliderlightbox or mslightbox when searching for plugins. We use that for some banners inside the plugin. Searching for metasliderlightbox or mslightbox will result in only this plugin being found.
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Can I connect other lightbox plugins to MetaSlider?
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Yes, a legacy feature in this plugin allows you to connect other lightbox plugins to MetaSlider slideshows. We no longer support this feature, but it may still work. Here are the connected slideshows:
Reviews
Contributors & Developers
“MetaSlider Gallery – Image Gallery, Lightbox Galleries, Modal Windows” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
“MetaSlider Gallery – Image Gallery, Lightbox Galleries, Modal Windows” has been translated into 8 locales. Thank you to the translators for their contributions.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
The full changelog can be found on metaslider.com.