Title: Flying Pigs Uploader
Author: herb morris
Published: <strong>September 23, 2026</strong>
Last modified: September 25, 2026

---

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# Flying Pigs Uploader

 By [herb morris](https://profiles.wordpress.org/48hmorris/)

[Download](https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/flying-pigs-uploader.0.11.101.zip)

 * [Details](https://vec.wordpress.org/plugins/flying-pigs-uploader/#description)
 * [Reviews](https://vec.wordpress.org/plugins/flying-pigs-uploader/#reviews)
 * [Development](https://vec.wordpress.org/plugins/flying-pigs-uploader/#developers)

 [Support](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/flying-pigs-uploader/)

## Description

**Which of the many WordPress image optimizers should you use for new images? None.**

Let the pigs do the work before your images ever land on your server. Flying Pigs
makes every size, every WebP and every AVIF in your browser, optimizes the original,
and only then uploads. Your server just writes the files. From the day you install
it, nothing arrives that still needs work.

Find it under Media  Flying Pigs Uploader.

#### Why it is faster

 * **Your server does no image work.** WordPress normally resizes every photo on
   the server, one at a time, and an optimizer plugin then does it all again. Here
   your computer does it once, before the upload.
 * **Finished on arrival.** No background queue, no “optimizing…” status, no first
   visitor waiting on a thumbnail. Each file is final the moment it lands.
 * **Built for bulk.** Hundreds of photos travel in a few large requests instead
   of one request per file, which keeps a shared host’s rate limits out of the way.

#### Measured, not promised

221 photos (209 MB), the same files on the same day, WebP-only output over HTTP/
2, lean installs with no other plugin hooking uploads:

 * **A managed host.** WordPress Media page: 12 min 20 s. Flying Pigs Free: 2 min
   19 s.
 * **A budget LiteSpeed host.** WordPress Media page: 15 min 47 s. Flying Pigs Free:
   4 min 23 s.
 * **A large shared host, its optimizer off.** WordPress Media page: 20 min 5 s.
   Flying Pigs Free: 11 min 8 s.

From nearly twice as fast to more than five times as fast, depending on the host,
with the server doing none of the image work.

#### Everything an upload needs is free

 * **Every size made in your browser,** for every size your theme and plugins register.
   Pick which ones to make in the Sizes panel.
 * **Optimized originals.** Auto rotated, metadata removed and much smaller at the
   same dimensions (about 60% on our test photos), with colors converted to sRGB
   so they look right everywhere. PNG to JPG is a click away.
 * **WebP and AVIF built in,** for the original and every size, with quality and
   effort per format. A copy that comes out larger than the original is discarded.
 * **Delivery set up for you.** The Delivery panel tests your server and turns WebP
   and AVIF delivery on, or leaves it to the delivery plugin you already use.
 * **State your AI-training rights in every image.** Every file carries the standard
   IPTC rights statement, “No AI training, allow search indexing” by default.
 * **Straight into your folders.** Pick a FileBird, Real Media Library, CatFolders,
   Mediamatic, Folders by Premio, Wicked Folders or HappyFiles folder, and the whole
   run lands in it.
 * **Not limited by your host’s upload limit.** Large files are sent in chunks that
   fit under it.
 * **Uploads that do not give up.** Failed requests are retried, and a run survives
   a dropped connection or an expired login.
 * **Gentle on shared hosting.** Optional limits on upload rate, batch size and 
   pauses.
 * **A progress window you can pop out,** with speed, files per second and any failed
   files listed as they happen.

No file limit, no monthly quota, no account. Your files go to your own site and 
nowhere else.

#### Who it is for

 * **Store owners** loading a catalog of product photos.
 * **Photographers and bloggers** who upload big batches straight from the camera.
 * **Agencies and site builders** loading or migrating large media libraries for
   clients.
 * **Anyone on shared hosting,** where every second of server time counts.

#### Flying Pigs Pro

Pro adds power tools for big libraries and product catalogs:

 * **Resize before upload,** 2560×2560 by default, so a 6,000-pixel camera file 
   never reaches your server.
 * **WebP only.** Store the WebP and nothing else: half the files, and browsers 
   get WebP with no delivery setup.
 * **Watermark,** with a built-in text and logo maker.
 * **Turbo boost,** up to six upload lanes, with a link check that sizes them to
   your line and host.
 * **Overwrite in place.** Replace a photo at the same address, with page builder,
   gallery and cache references repaired.
 * **File date and post date.** File uploads by the photo’s own date, or one you
   choose.
 * **WooCommerce product photos by SKU.** Name the files for their SKU and they 
   attach to the matching products as they upload, with no second image-import pass.
 * **Updates through your Plugins screen, and the help desk.**

The free plugin shows each Pro control in place, badged PRO, and carries none of
the Pro code. See [flying-pigs.wpspeedmeup.com](https://flying-pigs.wpspeedmeup.com/)
for Pro.

### Requirements

 * A browser with WebAssembly threads: Chrome, Edge, Brave, Safari 16.4 or later,
   and Firefox all run the engine. iPad and iPhone browsers usually refuse the engine’s
   memory and work in fallback mode (see the FAQ).
 * HTTPS (or localhost). The engine needs SharedArrayBuffer, which browsers enable
   only in a secure, cross-origin-isolated page. Without it the page falls back 
   to classic uploads with server-side thumbnails and says so in its header.
 * No web-server configuration. The page fetches the engine’s files once and starts
   every worker from them, so they need no special headers or MIME types on Apache,
   LiteSpeed or nginx.
 * No PHP limits to raise. Batches are capped at 25 MB, or 90% of the host’s upload
   limit when that is lower; a larger file is sent in chunks.

### External services

None. Flying Pigs Free makes no call to any outside service: the image work happens
in your browser and the uploads go to this site’s own REST API. Nothing is sent 
anywhere else, and nothing is collected. (The Pro version has a link check, a speed
test against Cloudflare’s speed-test endpoint that runs when its button is pressed;
the free plugin carries none of that code.)

### Source code

The image engine is wasm-vips, libvips compiled to WebAssembly by Kleis Auke Wolthuizen(
MIT), from https://github.com/kleisauke/wasm-vips. The files under vendor/wasm-vips(
vips-es6.js, vips.wasm and vips-heif.wasm) are that project’s published npm release
0.0.18, unmodified; vendor/wasm-vips/SOURCE.txt records the release, the SHA-256
of each file, and the build instructions. The two .wasm files are the engine itself:
every size, WebP and AVIF file is made by them in the browser, and they are served
from your own site because the plugin loads no code from anywhere else. The plugin’s
own worker, vendor/wasm-vips/fpig-vips-worker.js, and everything else in the plugin
are plain source.

Fonts: DSEG (SIL OFL 1.1) for the run timer and Fredoka (SIL OFL 1.1) for the wordmark,
both under vendor/ with their licenses.

## Screenshots

[⌊The uploader: drop zone, run bar, and the Media, Sizes, Delivery and Advanced 
panels.⌉⌊The uploader: drop zone, run bar, and the Media, Sizes, Delivery and Advanced
panels.⌉[

The uploader: drop zone, run bar, and the Media, Sizes, Delivery and Advanced panels.

## FAQ

### Do I still need an image optimizer plugin?

Not for new uploads. Everything Flying Pigs uploads arrives already optimized, with
its WebP and AVIF copies. It also keeps its uploads away from optimizer plugins’
upload hooks, so a file optimized in the browser lands once and is not compressed
again. Keep your optimizer, or its bulk tool, for images that were in your library
before.

### What about images already in my library?

Flying Pigs works on uploads. Images already in your library stay as they are. To
redo one, upload it again; Pro’s Overwrite replaces it in place at the same address.

### Does anything leave my site?

No. Your files go from your browser to your own site, and the free plugin makes 
no request to any outside service. There is no account or key.

### Which browsers work?

Chrome, Edge, Brave, Safari 16.4 or later, and Firefox on a computer. On a browser
without WebAssembly threads, and on most iPads and iPhones, the page still uploads,
and WordPress makes the sizes on the server as usual.

### What is fallback mode?

The engine needs a fixed 1 GB of memory per worker. Desktop browsers grant it; iPads
and iPhones often refuse it, and so does a page that is not cross-origin isolated.
When you press Start, the page checks the engine first. If it cannot start, the 
page says why and switches to fallback: the originals upload as they are and WordPress
makes the sizes on the server, the way its own uploader does.

In fallback you keep the upload machinery (batches, chunked large files, retries,
run recovery), the Sizes panel, WebP and AVIF copies where your host’s image library
can write them, folders and delivery. You lose the jobs only the engine can do: 
optimizing the original, PNG to JPG, the AI statement, and the speed, because the
server does the resizing again. Those options disable on the page with the reason
beside them. A site that wants the server path on purpose can return false from 
the `fpig_client_side_possible` filter.

### Do visitors actually get the WebP and AVIF files?

Only if something serves them, and the Delivery panel makes sure something does.
If a delivery plugin is active, the panel names it and leaves it in charge; Flying
Pigs writes the standard file names those plugins serve (photo.jpg.webp). If nothing
serves them, “Set up delivery for me” tests your server and turns on a rewrite in
the site’s .htaccess where the host honors it, or wraps your images in a `<picture
>` tag on the page. Both can be undone from the same panel.

### Can it tell AI crawlers to leave my photos alone?

It can say so, in the file. The AI Data Mining option writes the IPTC “Data Mining”
rights statement (IPTC Photo Metadata Standard 2023.1) into every file the browser
makes: “No AI training, allow search indexing” (the default), “No AI training, no
search indexing”, “Allow AI training” or “No statement”. It is a statement, not 
a lock: crawlers that read the standard honor it. For a signal no crawler can miss,
add robots.txt rules or an X-Robots-Tag header for your uploads folder as well.

### Does it work with my folder plugin?

FileBird, Real Media Library, CatFolders, Mediamatic, Folders by Premio, Wicked 
Folders (once its media folders are switched on), HappyFiles, and any plugin that
files media under a hierarchical taxonomy. Pick the folder in the run options, subfolders
included. Media folders never change where a file sits on disk; that is the File
date picker’s job, in Pro.

### What is in Pro?

Resize before upload, WebP only, a watermark with a text and logo maker, turbo-boost
uploads with a link check, overwriting in place, the File date and Set post date
pickers, and photos onto WooCommerce products by SKU, plus updates through your 
Plugins screen and the help desk. Optimizing, PNG to JPG, WebP and AVIF, choosing
sizes, delivery, the AI statement and folders are all free. See [flying-pigs.wpspeedmeup.com](https://flying-pigs.wpspeedmeup.com/)
for Pro.

## Reviews

There are no reviews for this plugin.

## Contributors & Developers

“Flying Pigs Uploader” is open source software. The following people have contributed
to this plugin.

Contributors

 *   [ herb morris ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/48hmorris/)

[Translate “Flying Pigs Uploader” into your language.](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/flying-pigs-uploader)

### Interested in development?

[Browse the code](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/flying-pigs-uploader/),
check out the [SVN repository](https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/flying-pigs-uploader/),
or subscribe to the [development log](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/flying-pigs-uploader/)
by [RSS](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/flying-pigs-uploader/?limit=100&mode=stop_on_copy&format=rss).

## Changelog

#### 0.11.101

 * Initial release.

## Meta

 *  Version **0.11.101**
 *  Last updated **27 minutes ago**
 *  Active installations **Fewer than 10**
 *  WordPress version ** 6.5 or higher **
 *  Tested up to **7.1.2**
 *  PHP version ** 7.4 or higher **
 *  Language
 * [English (US)](https://wordpress.org/plugins/flying-pigs-uploader/)
 * Tags
 * [AVIF](https://vec.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/avif/)[bulk upload](https://vec.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/bulk-upload/)
   [image optimization](https://vec.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/image-optimization/)
   [media library](https://vec.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/media-library/)[webp](https://vec.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/webp/)
 *  [Advanced View](https://vec.wordpress.org/plugins/flying-pigs-uploader/advanced/)

## Ratings

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## Contributors

 *   [ herb morris ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/48hmorris/)

## Support

Got something to say? Need help?

 [View support forum](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/flying-pigs-uploader/)

## Donate

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 [ Donate to this plugin ](https://flying-pigs.wpspeedmeup.com/corn/)