Title: Replacing Images Correctly
Last modified: August 26, 2020

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# Replacing Images Correctly

 *  Resolved [elphnt](https://wordpress.org/support/users/elphnt/)
 * (@elphnt)
 * [5 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/replacing-images-correctly/)
 * First off, I know this question has probably already been asked and I’ve done
   plenty of Googling about it too, but can’t really seem to find a conclusive answer…
   that is, how to successfully replace images on WordPress.
 * Example: I’ve uploaded an image called Image.jpg but I’ve made a tweak to the
   source image and want to upload a new copy with the same name (Image.jpg). The
   image is only used in one place so I don’t need to replace all instances of it.
   I could quite easily delete the original image, upload the new one and get on
   with it, but it just doesn’t work!
 * First off, why does this just not work? If I delete the 1st file and re-upload
   a new one, it seems strange that there isn’t some mechanism built into WordPress
   to say, “Hey, this is clearly a fresh upload, let’s display the new version”.
   And if I’ve supposedly deleted the old version, how does WordPress even manage
   to display the supposedly deleted older version? I’d love to understand why this
   works (or doesn’t work) the way it does so I can better learn how to deal with
   it.
 * Secondly, what is the best way to achieve the result from the example above; 
   successfully uploading a new version of an image and having it display the new
   version and not always display the old version!
 * I’ve tried the Enable Media Replace plugin and even then it still doesn’t always
   work for me. The only sure-fire way I’ve found to get WordPress to see the upload
   as a new image is to give it a different name, but that’s a little tedious and
   there are really only so many variations one can make, and from an organisational
   POV it’s just really annoying to have things called Image_1.jpg
 * Any help with this is greatly appreciated! 🙂

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

 *  [Joy](https://wordpress.org/support/users/joyously/)
 * (@joyously)
 * [5 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/replacing-images-correctly/#post-13317809)
 * Part of the reasoning for uploads to need unique names is that WP handles multiple
   authors all editing at the same time. You probably wouldn’t like it if your image.
   jpg was overwritten by another author who just happened to choose the same name
   for a different image.
 * The Enable Media Replace plugin is the way to go, and although you might think
   it didn’t work, it did.
    What you might be seeing is the cached image. Your browser
   doesn’t know that the image changed, so it simply shows you the one it already
   has, instead of downloading it again. You might think that deleting your browser
   cache would fix the problem, and it would… but only for you. Any visitors that
   had been there before would still see the old image, since they don’t know to
   delete their browser cache.
 * There are ways to tell the browser to download instead of use the cache. It’s
   called expiry headers. There are plugins that help you manage those, but mostly
   you don’t need to worry about it, unless you have a lot of repeat visitors and
   some important change. Themes and plugins use WP’s built-in version parameter
   for their CSS and script files, so that the changed file is loaded instead of
   the cached version. But this isn’t done on media files.
 * You didn’t mention if you are using a caching plugin, but this can also complicate
   things when you want to replace an image.
 *  Thread Starter [elphnt](https://wordpress.org/support/users/elphnt/)
 * (@elphnt)
 * [5 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/replacing-images-correctly/#post-13321398)
 * Hi Joy,
 * Thanks for the reply – that totally makes sense about the multiple author thing.
   It’s just me running my site so that definitely didn’t occur as a potential issue.
 * I am using a caching plugin, but I always clear the cache after making changes,
   but I totally forgot about my own browser’s cache! It certainly is an awful lot
   of effort just to get an image to show up >_<
 * The expires headers thing is not something I was aware of (or that there are 
   plugins to control that) so I’ll do some research into it!
 * Thanks so much for the reply – always glad to learn new things about how WordPress
   works! 🙂

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

The topic ‘Replacing Images Correctly’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [files](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/files/)
 * [image](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/image/)
 * [media](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/media/)
 * [upload](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/upload/)

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 2 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [elphnt](https://wordpress.org/support/users/elphnt/)
 * Last activity: [5 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/replacing-images-correctly/#post-13321398)
 * Status: resolved

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