Hippius Media Offloader lets you migrate your WordPress media library to Hippius — a distributed cloud storage platform where every file is encrypted, replicated across an independent network, and verifiable on-chain.

Files are stored on Arion, Hippius’s own distributed storage engine. Your media is split into 30 shards (10 data + 20 parity) using Reed-Solomon erasure coding, then placed across the network with the CRUSH algorithm. Up to 20 nodes can fail simultaneously and your files still rebuild perfectly.

The plugin communicates with Hippius through the S3-compatible API — the same API you’d use to talk to AWS S3. No code changes, no proprietary SDK, no IPFS configuration.

What this plugin does

Migrates existing WordPress media files in bulk to Hippius
Automatically offloads new uploads in the background
Replaces local media URLs with Hippius URLs in your posts and pages
Lets you keep local copies as backups, or delete them to save disk space
Tracks migration status, errors, and storage usage from a single dashboard

What this plugin does not do

It does not act as a CDN — for global content delivery use a CDN in front of Hippius
It does not back up your WordPress database — only media files
It does not encrypt files client-side. Hippius encrypts objects server-side using NaCl + KMS — miners only see encrypted bytes. For client-side end-to-end encryption, use the Hippius Desktop App

Before You Start

System requirements

WordPress 5.0 or higher
PHP 7.4 or higher
cURL PHP extension enabled
HTTPS enabled on your WordPress site (strongly recommended)

What you’ll need from Hippius

A Hippius account (free to create at console.hippius.com)
Credits in your account to cover storage usage
S3 Access Key ID (starts with hip_)
S3 Secret Access Key
Hippius API token (optional — only required for in-dashboard credit balance checks)

Important. Keep your Secret Access Key safe. It is shown only once at creation and cannot be retrieved later. If you lose it, you’ll need to generate a new key pair.

Get Your Hippius Credentials

Before configuring the plugin, you need to create your Hippius account and generate your S3 credentials. This takes about 2 minutes.

Step 1 — Create your Hippius account

Go to console.hippius.com
Sign up with Google or GitHub OAuth.

Note. No wallet, no seed phrase, no browser extension required. Just OAuth.

Step 2 — Add credits

In the console, go to Billing.
Add credits using credit card (Stripe) or TAO.

Credits are consumed as the plugin stores and serves your media. 1 credit = $1 USD.

Step 3 — Create your S3 credentials

In the console, go to S3 Storage.
Click Create Master Token.
Save your Access Key ID (starts with hip_) and Secret Key somewhere safe.

Critical. Your Secret Key is shown only once. Copy it immediately to a password manager. It cannot be recovered if lost.

Step 4 — Create the bucket (manual)

The plugin does not automatically create buckets. You need to create your media bucket manually before configuring the plugin.

In the console S3 Storage section, create a new bucket.
Choose a name (e.g. wp-media or your-site-name).
Set the bucket policy to public if you want media to be accessible without authentication (recommended for most WordPress sites).

Step 5 — (Optional) Generate an API token

If you want the plugin to display your remaining credit balance inside the WordPress dashboard, generate an API token:

Go to Settings API Keys in the Hippius console.
Generate a new API token and save it.

This is optional — the plugin works fully without it. The token is used only to display balance information in your admin dashboard.

Configure the Plugin

Go to Hippius Media in your WordPress admin sidebar. The configuration page has several fields.

Configuration fields

Access Key ID

Paste the Access Key ID you generated above. It starts with hip_.

Secret Access Key

Paste your Secret Access Key. This field is masked in the UI for security.
Leave blank to keep an existing Secret Access Key — useful when updating other settings.

API Token (optional)

Paste your API token if you generated one. This is used only to display your account credit balance inside the WordPress dashboard.

S3 Endpoint

The Hippius S3 endpoint URL. Default: https://s3.hippius.com

For better latency, you can use a regional endpoint instead:

Europe: https://eu-central-1.hippius.com
US: https://us-east-1.hippius.com

All regions serve the same data — pick whichever is closest to your WordPress server.

Bucket Name

The name of the bucket you created in the Hippius console. Default: WP-Media

Important. The bucket must already exist in the Hippius console before you set it here. The plugin will not auto-create buckets.

Migration options

Keep Local Files

When checked, original media files stay on your WordPress server after migration. When unchecked, local files are deleted after successful upload to Hippius, freeing up disk space.

Recommendation. Keep this checked when you first start migrating. Once you’ve verified everything works and your media is correctly served from Hippius, you can disable it to save server disk space.

Auto-Migrate New Uploads

When enabled, any new media file uploaded to WordPress is automatically migrated to Hippius in the background. Recommended once initial setup is verified.

Test the Connection

Before migrating any files, test that the plugin can reach Hippius with your credentials.

Save your configuration.
Click Test Connection.
Wait for the response.

Possible results

Connection successful — credentials accepted, bucket reachable. You’re ready to migrate.
Connection failed — see the Troubleshooting section for the exact error and how to fix it.

Migrate Your Media

You have two migration modes: bulk (for existing files) and auto (for new uploads). You can use either or both.

Bulk migration — for existing files

If your WordPress site already has media files in the library, use bulk migration to move them all to Hippius in one operation.

Go to Hippius Media Bulk Migration.
Click Start Migration.
Watch the progress bar — the plugin processes files in batches and shows real-time progress.

Note. Bulk migration runs in the background. You can leave the page or close the tab — migration continues. Come back later to check progress.

What happens during migration

Each file is uploaded to your Hippius bucket via the S3-compatible API.
WordPress media URLs are updated to point to the Hippius URL (transparent to visitors).
If “Keep Local Files” is unchecked, the local file is deleted after successful upload.
Each file is registered with a unique content hash stored on the Hippius blockchain — verifiable on-chain.

Auto migration — for new uploads

Once auto-migration is enabled, you don’t need to do anything else. Every new file you (or any author on your site) uploads to the WordPress Media Library is automatically offloaded to Hippius in the background.

To enable it:

Go to Hippius Media Settings.
Check Auto-Migrate New Uploads.
Save.

Verify Migration & Monitor Usage

The plugin dashboard gives you a live overview of what’s been migrated and your storage usage.

Statistics

Total Media Files — number of files in your WordPress media library
Migrated Files — files successfully stored on Hippius
Not Migrated Files — files still only local

Usage

Total Hippius Storage — how much data you’ve stored on Hippius
Local Storage Used — how much local disk your media still consumes
Potential Savings — what you’d save in local disk if you disabled “Keep Local Files”
Migration Progress — percentage of media library migrated

Verify a file is really on Hippius

To check that a specific file is actually stored on Hippius:

Open the WordPress Media Library and edit the file.
Check the file URL — it should point to your Hippius bucket, not to wp-content/uploads.
You can also check the Debug Log inside the plugin for upload confirmation entries showing the file’s content hash.

Troubleshooting

If something doesn’t work, check the Error Log and Debug Log at the bottom of the plugin page first — they usually pinpoint the exact issue.

“Test Connection” fails with 403 / Access Denied

Possible causes:

Wrong Access Key ID or Secret Access Key — double-check both, no leading/trailing spaces.
The bucket name doesn’t match an existing bucket in your Hippius account.
Your account has no credits — check your balance in the Hippius console.

“Test Connection” fails with timeout or DNS error

Your server cannot reach the Hippius endpoint. Check that outbound HTTPS traffic is allowed.
Try changing the S3 Endpoint to a regional one (eu-central-1 or us-east-1).

Some files fail to migrate

Check the Error Log for the specific error per file. Common causes:

File is too large — Hippius supports large files, but your PHP setup may have upload limits. Increase upload_max_filesize and post_max_size in your PHP configuration.
File is corrupted or unreadable on the local disk.
Network timeout during upload — retry the failed file from the dashboard.

Migrated media doesn’t appear on the front-end

Clear your WordPress cache (and any CDN cache in front of WordPress).
Verify the bucket policy is set to public if you want the media accessible without authentication.
Check that the URLs in your posts have been updated — the plugin handles this automatically, but cached pages may still hold the old URLs.

Credit balance shows 0 or doesn’t update

Make sure you’ve added your API token in the plugin settings (not just the S3 keys).
Click the Check Balance button to force a refresh.

How to read the Debug Log

The Debug Log shows every URL override decision made by the plugin. Useful entries:

Original file match — the plugin found a matching Hippius file for a given URL.
No size match found — the plugin used the original-size Arion Hash as fallback.
Fallback URL — the URL that was actually served.

Support & Resources

Plugin support

WordPress.org forum: wordpress.org/support/plugin/hippius-media-offloader/

Hippius documentation

Official docs: docs.hippius.com
S3 API reference: docs.hippius.com/storage/s3/integration
How storage works (Arion): docs.hippius.com/learn/storage-systems

Hippius console

Account, billing, credentials: console.hippius.com

Community

Community forum: community.hippius.com