{"id":14411,"date":"2026-10-27T09:24:56","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T14:24:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/infiniteuploads.com\/?post_type=docs&#038;p=14411"},"modified":"2026-10-27T09:24:56","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T14:24:56","password":"","slug":"how-media-cleanup-decides-whether-a-file-is-in-use","status":"publish","type":"docs","link":"https:\/\/infiniteuploads.com\/docs\/media-cleanup\/how-media-cleanup-decides-whether-a-file-is-in-use\/","title":{"rendered":"How Media Cleanup Decides Whether a File Is in Use"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><body><p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Media Cleanup marks a file <strong>In use<\/strong> when it finds the file referenced anywhere on your site, and <strong>Possibly unused<\/strong> when it finds no reference at all. It never marks a file as definitely unused, because some uses can't be seen from inside WordPress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"what-media-cleanup-checks\">What Media Cleanup checks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>The scan looks for your files in:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Post content<\/strong> for published, scheduled, draft, pending, and private posts and pages, including gallery shortcodes and Divi and Avada layouts.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Page builders<\/strong> including Elementor, Beaver Builder, Bricks, and Oxygen.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Featured images<\/strong> and <strong>WooCommerce product galleries<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>WooCommerce product category images.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>ACF image, file, and gallery fields<\/strong>, on posts, terms, users, and options pages.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Widgets<\/strong> and <strong>theme settings<\/strong> like your logo, header image, and site icon.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Your public pages, as visitors see them.<\/strong> The scan loads your home page and every published post and page and reads the images, backgrounds, videos, and links on them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It finds files whether the reference uses your local uploads address or your Infinite Uploads CDN address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"the-three-statuses\">The three statuses<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>In use:<\/strong> at least one reference was found. The Usage column shows how many places, like <strong>In use (32 places)<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Possibly unused:<\/strong> no reference was found, and nothing suggests the file might be used elsewhere. Recent uploads are included, so check the upload date before deleting anything.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Unknown:<\/strong> no reference was found, but we can't rule out a use.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"why-a-file-shows-as-unknown\">Why a file shows as Unknown<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A file is marked <strong>Unknown<\/strong> instead of <strong>Possibly unused<\/strong> when any of these are true:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>It's a document or other non-media file<\/strong>, like a PDF, ZIP, or spreadsheet. These are often linked from emails, other websites, or printed material we can't see.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>It's attached to a post that isn't published<\/strong>, like a draft or private post.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Some of your public pages couldn't be loaded during the scan.<\/strong> The scan shows a <strong>Some pages couldn't be checked<\/strong> warning with the list of pages, and files that might only be used there are marked Unknown to be safe.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"ignored-files\">Ignored files<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Mark as ignored<\/strong> is a flag you set, not a status. Ignored files show an <strong>Ignored<\/strong> badge and stay ignored across future scans, but they're still counted under their real status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"why-it-works-this-way\">Why It Works This Way<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Deleting a file that's still in use breaks images on your site, and that's much worse than keeping a file you don't need. So Media Cleanup leans toward caution: it tells you what it found, shows you where, and leaves every decision to you. Think of it like cleaning out the garage with a list of everything you've touched in the last year. It shows you what's collecting dust. You decide what goes to the curb.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Learn what Infinite Uploads Media Cleanup checks, and what In use, Possibly unused, and Unknown mean, so you know which files are safe to review.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3787,"featured_media":14465,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_doc_category":0,"wds_primary_doc_tag":0,"footnotes":""},"doc_category":[175],"doc_tag":[],"class_list":["post-14411","docs","type-docs","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","doc_category-media-cleanup"],"acf":[],"year_month":"2026-10","word_count":442,"total_views":"2","reactions":{"happy":"0","normal":"0","sad":"0"},"author_info":{"name":"Blake Whittle","author_nicename":"blakew","author_url":"https:\/\/infiniteuploads.com\/blog\/author\/blakew\/"},"doc_category_info":[{"term_name":"Media Cleanup","term_url":"https:\/\/infiniteuploads.com\/docs-category\/media-cleanup\/"}],"doc_tag_info":[],"knowledge_base_info":[],"knowledge_base_slug":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infiniteuploads.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/docs\/14411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infiniteuploads.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/docs"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infiniteuploads.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/docs"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infiniteuploads.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/3787"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/infiniteuploads.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/docs\/14411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14479,"href":"https:\/\/infiniteuploads.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/docs\/14411\/revisions\/14479"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infiniteuploads.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/14465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infiniteuploads.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"doc_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infiniteuploads.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/doc_category?post=14411"},{"taxonomy":"doc_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infiniteuploads.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/doc_tag?post=14411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}