When you allow image uploads, running a photo submission contest, encouraging user-generated content, or adding interactive features to your site can be much more engaging.
Enabling this option creates a space where visitors can actively contribute, making them feel more connected to your website and fostering a sense of community.
In this guide, I’ll walk you through a straightforward way to set this up on your WordPress site, including tips to make the process user-friendly and secure.
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How to Allow Users to Upload Images to Your WordPress Site
Firstly, you’re going to need a form builder plugin that enables you to easily create a file upload form. Here’s a video that shows you how to create an order form in WordPress using WPForms.
If you would prefer to read the instructions for how to allow users to upload files to your WordPress media library, I’ll walk through the process in the steps below. Let’s jump into it.
Step 1: Install and Activate WPForms
WPForms is an incredibly versatile plugin. We can use it as a WordPress image upload plugin using its simple drag-and-drop functionality without touching any code.
In order to accept user-submitted photos in WordPress, you first need to get a WPForms Basic license or above. This will give you access to a ton of extra features, addons, and integrations.
Once you’ve purchased a premium license, proceed to install and activate the WPForms plugin on your WordPress website.
If you need help with installing the plugin, you can see follow these step-by-step instructions on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Step 2: Create an Image Upload Form in WordPress
WPForms lets your visitors upload images on the front end. We just need to publish a form with a file upload field.
Once you’ve installed and activated WPForms on your site, you’ll need to create a new form. Go to WPForms » Add New in your WordPress menu.
Once you’ve done that, you’ll be taken to the form setup screen. Start by giving a name to your form (the name helps you track the form and its entries inside your dashboard).
WPForms comes with 2,000+ WordPress form templates to make form creation easy. You can use the pre-made File Upload Form template to start.
After selecting the template, the form builder will load it up in just a few seconds. You’ll now be able to add, remove, or reorder fields and view a live preview on the right sight of screen.
Whether you’re building your file upload form from scratch or using a template, make sure to include one of the following fields:
- File Upload: This field will add a simple file uploader to your form so you can accept user submitted photos, pdfs, videos, and other files.
- Rich Text: If you’re using WPForms as an image upload plugin for guest or sponsored posts, you can let users add images alongside written content with the Rich Text field. For more information, see our complete guide to the Rich Text field.
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Step 3: Edit Your File Upload Field Options
The File Upload Form template comes pre-equipped with all the important fields, including Name, Email, Phone, and, of course, the File Upload field.
However, you can customize the form by adding more fields by dragging them from the left-hand panel to the right-hand panel. You can also remove any existing fields you don’t need or reorder them by clicking and dragging the fields.
But most importantly, you should review your file upload field settings if you want to impose any restrictions. To access the settings for the file upload field, click on the field to open the Field Options.
Under the General tab on the left-hand pane, you’ll find several settings that allow you to control the files you want to accept in the upload field:
- Allowed File Extensions: If you only want to accept specific file types, you can specify them here. Simply enter the file extensions separated by commas. Leaving this option blank will allow all supported file types (.png, .gif, .jpg, .doc, .xls, .ppt, .pdf, .wav, .mp3, .mp4,.mpg, .mov, .wmv)
- Max File Size: You can enter the max file size that you want to allow for each file. This input accepts values in MBs. Leaving this setting blank will default the file size limit to the value set by your web host.
- Max File Uploads: This setting allows you to specify the max number of files a user can submit during a single entry.
You can also choose to save the uploaded files in your WordPress Media Library. This is handy if you want to publish the images in your posts or pages later on.
To set this up, click on the Advanced tab in the Field Options of the File Upload field.
Then, click on the toggle button next to the Store file in WordPress Media Library option to enable it.
This way, you can access user-submitted images from your WordPress gallery.
If you’re using the Rich Text field to let users upload images to your WordPress site, you’ll first need to open its field options and turn on the Allow Media Uploads option.
Then you can turn on the Store file in WordPress Media Library option as well if you want. When your form looks the way you want it to, click Save at the top of the form builder.
Step 4: Edit File Upload Form Notifications
WPForms allows you to receive the uploaded files as attachments in email notifications. To edit your notifications, go to Settings » Notifications.
You can edit the notification subject line, email body, Send To email address, and more to ensure the notifications are as helpful and readable as you want.
If you want to enable file upload attachments with the email, scroll down to the Advanced section and click on the Enable File Upload Attachments toggle.
After that, simply specify the file upload field from the dropdown and you’re good to go!
It’s also a good idea to review your confirmation message, which appears on the screen immediately after the form is submitted by a user.
To check or edit your confirmations, go to Settings » Confirmations. Then, customize the confirmation message to your liking and click Save.
For help with other confirmation types, see our documentation on setting up form confirmations.
Step 5: Publish Your WordPress Image Upload Form
Now that you’ve built your form, you’ll need to add it to your WordPress website to get your file uploader up and ready.
WPForms allows you to add your forms to lots of locations on your website, including your WordPress blog posts, WordPress pages, and even sidebar widgets.
To begin, click on the Embed button next to Save at the top of the form builder.
At this point, you’ll see a couple of embedding options. Let’s choose Create a New Page to embed the form in a fresh new page.
After that, you’ll need to enter a name for your page. Enter a name and press Let’s Go to proceed.
The form will now show up inside the WordPress editor, and you can check to make sure you like the way it looks.
Once you’re satisfied with the appearance of your form, go ahead and press the Publish button to launch your file upload form.
Ok, now that you’re ready to accept form submissions with file uploads. Feel free to test it by adding files to confirm it’s working as intended.
Great! So now your form is all ready to accept file uploads from your visitors.
But once you start getting submissions, how are you going to view the uploaded files? That’s really easy as we’ll show in the next step.
Step 6: View the Uploaded Files in WordPress
You can view the uploaded files from your WPForms Entries. Head to your WordPress dashboard and click on WPForms » Entries.
Then, you’ll see the Entries screen, where you’ll find all your active forms. Click on your file upload form to see its submissions, and hit View to see details about a specific entry.
Now that you’re inside the entry, you’ll be able to see the file name, plus click on it to view and/or download it.
Check out this complete guide to form entries if you’d like to learn more. And there you have it! You now know how to let users upload images to your WordPress site.
FAQs on Image Uploads in WordPress
Image uploads are easy to set up with WPForms, but you may run into issues with file sizes and formats. Here are some common questions we get.
How do I create an image uploader on my website?
You can use a form builder plugin as an image uploader on your site if the goal is to allow users to upload images to your WordPress media library.
Can Users Upload to WordPress Directly?
Yes, you can allow users to upload images to your gallery in WordPress. But you’ll need a plugin like WPForms, which works as an image uploader for WordPress.
It lets users upload file types like images, audio, video, and documents to be uploaded with a single click. You can even view these uploads as attachments within your WPForms entry management screen.
Why allow users to upload an image?
You might wonder when it makes sense to allow your website visitors to upload image files to your site. Adding media files into a form is not only easy, but it can also be really helpful.
Here are just a few ways your WordPress contributor can use an image upload form:
- To add images to their profile photos
- Adding images to their guest blog post submissions
- Adding media file to a custom order form
- Gathering testimonials of your products
- Letting users submit events on a calendar
…and you can probably think of quite a few more reasons to use an image uploader for WordPress!
Having an image upload form saves you time since you don’t have to upload the user’s images yourself. It also helps to keep your site secure because you don’t have to give all your users access to log in to your site if they want to upload images.
What Image Formats Does WordPress Allow?
When you create an image upload form, WPForms uses the same defaults as WordPress.
You can accept lots of different types of files through your forms by default, including:
- Images (.png, .gif, and .jpg)
- Documents (.doc, .xls, .ppt, and .pdf)
- Video (.mpg, .mov, and .wmv)
- Audio (.wav, .mp3, and .mp4)
If you want to add other image formats, here’s how to allow additional file upload types to your forms. This is handy if you want to allow image uploads from smartphones since the file format and MIME type might be different.
If you’d like to increase the maximum upload image size for your site, you’ll need to reach out to your WordPress hosting provider to find out if it’s possible. Check out this tutorial on increasing the maximum file upload size in WordPress for more details.
Next, Accept User Submitted Blog Posts
Want your users to be able to submit a whole blog post, instead of just an image? Check out our guide on how to allow users to submit blog posts. If you want to see how WPForms compares to other popular form builders, check out our guide on WPForms vs Typeform.
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Ready to build your form? Get started today with the easiest WordPress form builder plugin. WPForms Pro includes lots of free templates and offers a 14-day money-back guarantee.
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