AccessNow Image Optimizer is a free WordPress plugin that compresses images on your own server and makes WebP and AVIF copies, with no account and no monthly limit. Before it changes any image, it keeps the original, so you can always put it back in one click. Version 1.4 adds the other half: it shows how much space those backups use, and lets you delete them when you’re sure you won’t need them.
Download 1.4 from the AccessNow Image Optimizer page. It is on its way to the WordPress.org plugin directory; until it is listed there, that page is the place to get it.
Why keep the originals at all?
Optimising an image means re-saving it smaller. Most of the time you’ll never notice the difference, but sometimes you will: a product photo that needs every detail, a logo with fine edges, a client who wants their picture exactly as sent. Because Image Optimizer keeps an untouched copy first, none of that is a problem. Press Restore original in the Media Library, or put every original back at once, and the thumbnails and WebP and AVIF copies are made again to match.
See what the backups cost you
Backups take space: the full size of every original the plugin changed. On a large site that can be hundreds of megabytes, and on budget hosting that matters. The new Backups panel, at the top of Settings → Image Optimizer → Restore and convert, says it plainly: how much space the backups use, for how many images, and what deleting them would free. The savings report shows the same figure, along with the space you’ve freed so far.
Delete them when you’re sure
Once you’ve checked your images and you’re happy with them, you can let the originals go. There are three ways:
- All at once. Tick the box that says how much space it frees, then Delete all backups permanently. It works in batches, so even a very large library is fine, and if it stops it carries on where it left off.
- One image at a time. Delete backup sits next to Restore original in the Media Library, and tells you what it frees before it does anything.
- Automatically. Under Settings → Image Optimizer, switch on Delete old backups and backups older than the number of days you choose (90 to begin with) are deleted once a day. It is off until you turn it on.
Deleting a backup never touches the optimised image or its WebP and AVIF copies: your site looks exactly the same. The only difference is that those images can no longer be put back, and the Media Library says No backup kept so you always know which ones can be. Restorable backups, and freeing the space walks through it.
Photo details: kept, or removed, your choice
Photos carry hidden details: the camera, the settings, when and often where they were taken, and the photographer’s name and copyright. Image editors tend to lose some of it when they re-save an image, and on many hosts they lose all of it. Version 1.4 copies those details into every file it writes, on any server: the optimised image, each of its sizes, and its WebP copy, along with the AVIF copy where the server’s Imagick can carry them. Each file it re-saves upright is marked upright, so no viewer turns a photo twice.
Under Settings → Image Optimizer → Location and camera details you choose what stays: Keep all metadata (the default), Remove location (GPS), or Remove camera and location details, which can still keep your copyright and author. The colour profile is always kept, so colours never shift, and the backup of each original keeps everything.
It also fixes something you may have noticed: when you upload a photo, WordPress fills in its title and caption from those details, and until now the plugin could wipe them first. It no longer does, whichever setting you choose.
And there is a new, optional credit. If you tick it (it is off unless you do), images you upload from then on get “Optimised with AccessNow Image Optimizer” and a link added to their hidden description. It never shows on your pages and never appears in the Media Library title or caption. Photo details (metadata) and the optional credit explains every choice.
Only you decide
Nothing is ever deleted unless you ask: not by an update, and not by uninstalling the plugin, which never removes images or backups. Of the image optimisers we compare it with, none shows how much space their backups use, and none deletes a single image’s backup; most leave you to delete a folder by hand. For anyone looking after many sites there are WP-CLI commands too: wp image-optimizer backups size and wp image-optimizer backups delete.
Get it
AccessNow Image Optimizer is free, and everything happens on your own server. Download it from the AccessNow Image Optimizer page, where you can also see how it compares with EWWW, Smush, Imagify, Converter for Media and ShortPixel. The last release, 1.3, added one-click restore and private photos.
