Create Categories for Your Media with this WordPress Plugin

If you’re someone who works with your uploaded media more than just once, then the Media Library Categories plugin may be of help to you.

This plugin allows you to create media categories, assign media to those categories, and then search the categories, filter by categories, and even automatically insert media from a category into a post with a shortcode.

The Media Categories Plugin in Action

Settings

The main settings page allows you to control which user roles have access to the categories.

Media Categories Button

You will notice a new button under your Media section titled Media Categories.

Add Categories

In order to add categories, you will need to go through the backend section.

Manage Categories – Add Shortcodes

The Manage Categories section is for editing your categories. But you will also notice that each category is assigned a shortcode.  Using this shortcode will automatically include all the images from that category into your post.

In the Media Uploader

When you are in the media uploader (when uploading media on the post-new page), you will notice that a new link titled Media Categories shows up in the media uploader beside the Media Library link.

Choosing a Category

When uploading an image in the media uploader, you can choose a category for an image (however, you can’t create a new category through the uploader itself – it needs to have already been created).

Categories in the Uploader

Once in the media uploader, you can choose from your categories to find the media in those categories. You can also automatically insert the shortcode for the category, which will insert the images from that category into your post.

Images Via Shortcodes

The one potential drawback of this plugin that I found is that there doesn’t appear to be an easy way to style images that are inserted via shortcode. The images simply line up in a column one after another. If using them in a sidebar, this may be all right, however.

In any case, the ability to insert media with shortcodes doesn’t seem to be the main selling point for this plugin. The categories themselves are. If you are someone who works with your media files a lot, then having the ability to put them in categories makes a lot of sense.

You can download the Media Library Categories plugin here.