Featherwell

Images are usually the heaviest part of a page. Featherwell makes them lighter with the image tools already on your server, the same way WordPress itself saves images, and without sending your images anywhere.

New uploads

• JPEG (and, if you like, PNG) uploads are saved as WebP, or AVIF where the server supports it. WordPress makes the full-size image and every smaller size in the new format.
• The uploaded file is always kept as the original.
• Choose the quality, and the largest width or height for images on the site (WordPress uses 2560 pixels).
• GIF images are never converted, so animations keep working.

The existing Media Library

• Convert every image in safe steps, with a progress bar. The job can be paused and continued, even after leaving the page.
• Each image is rebuilt from its original upload, so quality is as good as it can be.
• See every image’s format and how much lighter it became.
• Undo one image or all of them at any time.

Older posts keep working and get lighter

Posts written before converting still link to the old JPEG files. Featherwell shows them the new files as the page is displayed, so visitors get the lighter images and WordPress can add its responsive sizes again. The posts themselves are never edited.

Images without a size

Images without a width and height make the page jump while it loads (Cumulative Layout Shift). WordPress adds both only to images it knows from the Media Library. Featherwell adds them to the other images from your uploads folder too, by reading their size once.

Careful with your files

• The original upload is never changed or removed.
• Old copies stay until you remove them. “Remove old copies” deletes only files that nothing links to: posts, page builder data, custom fields, settings and term fields are all checked. Linked files stay, so older pages keep working even without Featherwell.
• Images are skipped when converting could harm them: images edited in WordPress’s image editor (rebuilding from the original would lose the edit), images whose original file is missing, and images whose new file name is already used by another image in the same folder (for example photo.jpg and photo.png).
• If the server cannot save an image in the new format, the image is left exactly as it was.

For developers

• wp featherwell status
• wp featherwell convert --all or wp featherwell convert 12 34
• wp featherwell undo --all or wp featherwell undo 12
• wp featherwell clean-up --yes

Featherwell uses WordPress’s own image functions and filters (image_editor_output_format, wp_editor_set_quality, big_image_size_threshold and wp_create_image_subsizes()).

Privacy

Images never leave your server. Featherwell makes no requests to other servers, uses no cookies and collects no data.