Set Filename as Caption for All Images – WordPress Media Library

If you have a photography website or an online store, it’s likely that your clients will need to have details about the pictures and images they’re seeing on your site. In that case, you could copy the filename to the caption field in all your images.

Of course, that brings us another problem because, while you can do that manually on the WP Media Library, you’ll have to spend a lot of time doing it because WordPress doesn’t allow us to do that in bulk.

That’s why we want to show you how to set the filename as the caption for all your images. We’ll directly copy the content in the Filename field to the Caption field.

We’ll do it using the Media Library Spreadsheet. This plugin aims to simplify your media library management by displaying all your files on a spreadsheet where you can edit values as in Excel or Google Sheets.

Also, you can apply massive changes to your files using the Bulk Edit tool, which allows you to filter and edit all your files at once.

Once installed and activated, open the spreadsheet by going to WP Sheet Editor > Edit Media.

Now just follow these simple steps.

1- Open the Bulk Edit tool

With the Bulk Edit, you won’t have to spend a lot of hours editing thousands of files because you can do it in minutes. This tool is made to help you save the most important resource we have when it comes to managing lots of files: time.

Open it with one click on the toolbar.

2- Filter all the images

The spreadsheet will show you all kinds of files such as videos, images, audios, software, zip files, etc. Therefore, you need to filter the images to apply the change to them only.

Select I want to search the rows to update in the Select the rows that you want to update dropdown.

Now tick the Enable advanced filters checkbox and select these values to find all the images.

• Field key: Format
• Operator: CONTAINS
• Value: image
• Click on Run search

That will filter all your images and take you back to the Bulk Edit tool.

3- Set the filename as the caption for all your images

You need to select these values to set the filename as the caption for all the images.

• Select the rows that you want to update: I want to search the rows to update
• What field do you want to edit: Caption
• Select type of edit: Copy from other columns
• Copy from this column: wp attached file ($_wp_attached_file$)
• Click on Execute now.

Avoid 404 errors when you edit your image filenames

Here’s a tutorial that shows you how to easily bulk edit filenames and avoid 404 erros by automatically creating 303 redirects.

Done!

Setting the filename as the caption for all your images just takes a few minutes and clicks if you use the WordPress Media Library Spreadsheet. Of course, you can bulk edit any other field with this plugin.