You have already created a virtual folder structure with Real Media Library (or imported it from another plugin) and installed Real Physical Media later. Now you want to put all files in the file system (physical) into the same folder structure? We explain to you how to do that!
Why Real Physical Media does not arrange existing files automatically
Real Physical Media never touches your existing files if you do not trigger it. That means, only future uploads will be automatically placed to the correct Real Media Library folder. For example, you upload a file to the folder “My galleries/Animals”, the file will be moved to wp-content/uploads/my-galleries/animals.
We do not move your existing files automatically because WordPress is written in PHP, so we have to queue up the moving of the files to run sequentially. For example, if you have 100,000 files in your WordPress media library, moving all of them may take a few hours and the files that are moved in the meantime will not be physically moved until the large mass in the queue is done. Also, in very rare edge cases, if your web server or PHP is misconfigured in some special way, you may have problems moving files and if, for example, 100,000 files are moved incorrectly without your knowledge about it, that would be a worst-case scenario.
Solution: Add all files to the queue
You can have all existing files moved automatically by adding them to the queue of files to be moved. You can do this in the following way:
- In your WordPress backend, navigate to Settings > Media > Tab “Real Physical Media”
- Click on “Add * files to queue for moving“