Like most blogging scripts, WordPress lets you upload images directly via the admin panel to your hosting space, which is incredibly useful.

Though there are some great image hosting sites out there which let you upload images for free, I always prefer to upload images directly to my own hosting area.

This obviously uses up more space on my server however it ensures that my posts are never changed without me knowing it. And when you hotlink to images on someone elses website, there’s always a chance that the images can be removed without you knowing about it which means your posts would look incomplete. If an image is central to the post itself, the post would essentially be useless and you could lose a lot of traffic.

I’ve noticed that many WordPress bloggers run into some problems whilst trying to upload images to a brand new installation of WordPress. Thankfully, it is very easy to set up.

1. Create An Uploads Folder – The first thing you need to do is create an uploads folder. You can create this anywhere though I usually use the default location, which is wp-content/uploads.
2. Make your Uploads Folder Writeable – You then need to make your uploads folder writable. To do this you need to CHMOD the uploads folder to 777 i.e. make the folder writeable for the owner, group and the public. You can do this directly through the file manager or via your FTP client. Via a FTP client you can do this by right clicking the folder and selecting ‘change file permissions’ (it is something called CHMOD). After you have done this, WordPress is able to upload files to this folder and create subfolders directly as well.
3. Set The Uploads Folder Location In WordPress – Once you have created the uploads folder, you need to tell WordPress where it is. In all new versions of WordPress you can do this at www.nameofyourblog.com/wp-admin/options-misc.php. You need to ensure that there is no backslash at the beginning or end of the url location, as doing so may stop your blog from writing to the folder (this is actually a common problem for new WP blogggers). So for example, you would enter wp-content/uploads and not /wp-content/uploads or wp-content/uploads/. If you are sure you have entered these details correctly and WordPress is still having a problem uploading files then double check that there is no backslash at the end of the WordPress address in the general settings area.

If you follow the above steps then you should now be able to upload images and files to your WordPress blog. If you are still having problems uploading files then it’s likely that a plugin which you are using is causing some sort of conflict. If this is the case you should deactivate all plugins until you have determined the source of the problem. You can then reactivate the plugins one by one to ensure that you find which plugin is causing the problem.

If you are having problems with any of this, please let us know and we will do our best to help you out

Kevin