How do I exclude all images from a wp_query?

Question

I want to query attachments and exclude all images.

I can see how to include only images, using 'post_mime_type' => 'image/*', but I couldn't find any way of achieving the opposite. Is there any mime_type equivalent of posts__not_in?

Answer 1

Pretty much the solution is to include all mimes except images. WordPress has a nifty little function where it keeps all it's accepted mime-types called get_allowed_mime_types() ( cleverly named ) which returns an Array() of mimes. All we need to do is get the difference between the returned array and the array of mime-types we don't want in our query:

$unsupported_mimes  = array( 'image/jpeg', 'image/gif', 'image/png', 'image/bmp', 'image/tiff', 'image/x-icon' );
$all_mimes          = get_allowed_mime_types();
$accepted_mimes     = array_diff( $all_mimes, $unsupported_mimes );
$attachment_query   = new WP_Query( array(
    'post_type'         => 'attachment',
    'post_status'       => 'inherit',
    'post_mime_type'    => $accepted_mimes,
    'posts_per_page'    => 20,
) );

Answer 2

If you also want to include post types other than attachments (e.g. posts, pages) that don't have any mime type, you'll have to use the posts_where filter:

add_filter( 'posts_where' , 'remove_images' );

function remove_images($where) {
    global $wpdb;
    $where.=' AND '.$wpdb->posts.'.post_mime_type NOT LIKE \'image/%\'';
    return $where;
}

Answer 3

I'm pretty much certain there isn't an equivalent of posts_not_in for mime types.

You could of course query for all attachments that are images. Preferably just returning the IDs via parameter fields set to ids. Then you can use those IDs with posts__not_in on a second query. Drawback being that you need two queries.

Another possibility would be to hook into the posts_where filter and apply some SQL to get your result like you want it.