Title: Scanning post meta
Last modified: May 5, 2026

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# Scanning post meta

 *  [Gal Baras](https://wordpress.org/support/users/galbaras/)
 * (@galbaras)
 * [5 days, 11 hours ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/scanning-post-meta/)
 * Some image references, such as video thumbnails, are stored in post meta data(
   e.g. Rank Math Schema), rather than in the post content.
 * Other images are used by theme template files.
 * Can these please be considered, at least by the browser method?
 * The page I need help with: _[[log in](https://login.wordpress.org/?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fwordpress.org%2Fsupport%2Ftopic%2Fscanning-post-meta%2F%3Foutput_format%3Dmd&locale=en_US)
   to see the link]_

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

 *  Thread Starter [Gal Baras](https://wordpress.org/support/users/galbaras/)
 * (@galbaras)
 * [4 days, 22 hours ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/scanning-post-meta/#post-18900132)
 * Some images are also referenced by plugin files, e.g. the WooCommerce placeholder
   image.
 *  Plugin Author [sungraizfaryad](https://wordpress.org/support/users/sungraizfaryad/)
 * (@sungraizfaryad)
 * [3 days, 5 hours ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/scanning-post-meta/#post-18902051)
 * Hi Gal,
 * Most post meta scanning is already covered:
    - Generic post meta scan walks all postmeta arrays/serialized data
      looking for
      attachment ID and URL keys (handles Rank Math Schemavideo thumbnails, custom
      plugin meta, etc.)
    - Dedicated parsers for Yoast SEO, Rank Math, AIOSEO, and SEOPress
      for their
      OpenGraph / Twitter image fields
    - WooCommerce placeholder image is also detected via the options scan
 * Theme template files with hardcoded image paths in PHP cannot be
   detected reliably,
   that’s a fundamental limitation of database-onlyscanning and is documented under“
   Important Precautions” in thereadme.
 * If a specific Rank Math Schema image isn’t being picked up after a
   full scan,
   please share the meta key (or a screenshot of the field)and I’ll verify it’s 
   matched by the parser.
 * Regards,
 *  Thread Starter [Gal Baras](https://wordpress.org/support/users/galbaras/)
 * (@galbaras)
 * [2 days, 22 hours ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/scanning-post-meta/#post-18902329)
 * The video thumbnail meta key is `rank_math_schema_VideoObject`. The meta value
   is an array containing absolute URLs for the images.
 * Some files are listed (file name only) in `_mfrh_history`, but this is just for
   the Media File Renamer plugin and should probably be skipped.
 * The key `_original_filename` can probably be ignored too.
 * There’s a file being referenced (absolute URL) in a theme’s parts/sidebar.html
   file on a site that uses the Site Editor and loads all of the template files 
   from disk. This image (youtube-channel.jpg) is loaded on many pages ([like this one](https://pacificsprings.com.au/water-news/))
   in the sidebar, but is listed as unused.
 * On the same site, there are custom meta fields attached to products and product
   variations, which contain image references (absolute URLs). I really need those
   to NOT be deleted 😊
 * It’ll be good to provide some way to add meta key patterns to the scanner, then,
   to cater for custom fields. The plugin code should be able to handle the scan
   already, so this just needs the settings on the admin page.
 * Side note: some images can have the same file name, but a different path. I’ve
   found some of those and had to dig a little to realise what was going on. It 
   may be good to list the full path in the report, and even (ideally), indicate
   that the file name has other matches. Sometimes, images are uploade more than
   once on different months, and duplicates need cleaning with confidence.
 * This seems to cover it for me, but once implemeted, most of the images will disappear
   for me, and we might discover some more.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

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 * 5 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [Gal Baras](https://wordpress.org/support/users/galbaras/)
 * Last activity: [2 days, 22 hours ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/scanning-post-meta/#post-18902329)
 * Status: not resolved