Delete original image - keep thumbnail?

Question

I'm using a lot of thumbnails but never the original file. To save space, I'd like to prevent the original from being saved on disk but only keep a thumbnail of 100px. How can I do this?

Thanks, Dennis

Answer 1

add_filter( 'wp_generate_attachment_metadata', 'delete_fullsize_image' );
function delete_fullsize_image( $metadata )
{
    $upload_dir = wp_upload_dir();
    $full_image_path = trailingslashit( $upload_dir['basedir'] ) . $metadata['file'];
    $deleted = unlink( $full_image_path );

    return $metadata;
}

Answer 2

I foud another solution in the web. It's based on the one accepted here, but it takes it even further.

The one, accepted here, removes the main-image and goes on. The solution I found replaces the original image by the image generated for "large". It just goes on without replacing if this image-resolution is not defined.

This way it is ensured that every script, relying on the original image, will still work as before - for example the thumnail regeneration.

http://www.wprecipes.com/how-to-automatically-use-resized-image-instead-of-originals

EDIT:

@dalbaeb pointed me to an issue written in the comments on the blog-post. I rewrote the code based on the API instead of the solution provided there. It's not that much of a difference, but just to use the same function calls as in the API ;)

function replace_uploaded_image($image_data) {
    // if there is no large image : return
    if (!isset($image_data['sizes']['large'])) return $image_data;

    // paths to the uploaded image and the large image
    $upload_dir = wp_upload_dir();
    $uploaded_image_location = $upload_dir['basedir'] . '/' .$image_data['file'];
    $large_image_filename = $image_data['sizes']['large']['file'];

    // Do what wordpress does in image_downsize() ... just replace the filenames ;)
    $image_basename = wp_basename($uploaded_image_location);
    $large_image_location = str_replace($image_basename, $large_image_filename, $uploaded_image_location);

    // delete the uploaded image
    unlink($uploaded_image_location);

    // rename the large image
    rename($large_image_location, $uploaded_image_location);

    // update image metadata and return them
    $image_data['width'] = $image_data['sizes']['large']['width'];
    $image_data['height'] = $image_data['sizes']['large']['height'];
    unset($image_data['sizes']['large']);

    // Check if other size-configurations link to the large-file
    foreach($image_data['sizes'] as $size => $sizeData) {
        if ($sizeData['file'] === $large_image_filename)
            unset($image_data['sizes'][$size]);
    }

    return $image_data;
}
add_filter('wp_generate_attachment_metadata', 'replace_uploaded_image');

EDIT2:

I had a problem with the code on one client where another size-configuration linked to the large-file. I updated the code accordingly. If you have any kind of problems with it, drop me a mail.