9 Best WordPress Plugins To Regenerate Thumbnails (2024 Features Compared)

Thumbnail regeneration is an integral part of optimizing a WordPress website.

Fortunately, WordPress community provides numerous plugins tailored to simplify the thumbnail regeneration process. These plugins offer various features to meet diverse user needs.

In this guide, we will explore the top WordPress plugins to regenerate thumbnails and compare their features.

What is WordPress thumbnail regeneration?

When you upload an image to WordPress, several smaller versions (often called thumbnails) of that image are generated to be used in different contexts throughout the site, such as in post excerpts, galleries, or widgets.

As seen in the screenshot below, you’ll notice a variety of image sizes, with each size specified by a suffix (measured in pixels, for instance, 150 wide and 150 high) at the end of the file name.

If you change your theme, update image dimensions, or make other adjustments that affect how these images are displayed, your existing thumbnails may no longer be properly sized or might look off.

In such cases, regenerating thumbnails becomes necessary to ensure that all images on your site appear correctly.

In short, WordPress thumbnail regeneration refers to recreating or updating these smaller versions of images.

Why is it important to regenerate thumbnails for WordPress?

Regenerating thumbnails for WordPress serves, in my opinion, two important purposes.

First and foremost, regenerating thumbnails aids in maintaining consistency throughout the site. As previously noted, updates to themes or transitions to new themes, as well as changing image dimensions, can result in images appearing in varying sizes. So, it basically helps with display inconsistencies.

Additionally, it helps save storage space. As time goes on, your WordPress site may gather unused and outdated image thumbnails, especially if you’ve switched themes or altered image sizes. Regenerating thumbnails enables you to tidy up unnecessary files and free up storage space on your server.

Best WordPress plugins to regenerate thumbnails compared

Without further hesitation, let’s compare the top WordPress plugins for regenerating thumbnails.

We’ll explore their features head-to-head to help you choose the best one for your needs.

Basic regeneration features

• Bulk regeneration: Ability to regenerate thumbnails for all the images on your WordPress website in one go. This saves time and effort by generating the thumbnails for every image uploaded.
• Regenerate only featured images: Regenerate only the thumbnails associated with the featured images, typically set on posts and pages.
• Force regeneration: Regenerate the thumbnails regardless of whether they are already present on the disk or not.

Plugin	Bulk regeneration	Regenerate only featured images	Force regeneration
reGenerate Thumbnails Advanced	Yes	Yes	Yes
reGenerate Thumbnails Advanced Pro	Yes	Yes	Yes
Regenerate Thumbnails	Yes	Yes	No
Force Regenerate Thumbnails	Yes	No	Yes
Perfect Images	Yes	No	No
Image Regenerate & Select Crop	Yes	No	Yes
Real Thumbnail Generator Lite	Yes	No	Yes
Real Thumbnail Generator Pro	Yes	No	Yes
Simple Image Sizes	Yes	No	No

Regeneration period

• Regenerate for pre-defined periods: This allows you to regenerate thumbnails for a set time, like yesterday, last week, last month, or last year.
• Regenerate for a custom period: Regenerate thumbnails within a specific date range.

Plugin	Regenerate for pre-defined periods	Regenerate for a custom period
reGenerate Thumbnails Advanced	No	No
reGenerate Thumbnails Advanced Pro	Yes	Yes
Regenerate Thumbnails	No	No
Force Regenerate Thumbnails	No	No
Perfect Images	No	No
Image Regenerate & Select Crop	No	No
Real Thumbnail Generator Lite	No	No
Real Thumbnail Generator Pro	No	No
Simple Image Sizes	No	No

Thumbnail management options

• Adding new image sizes: Define and integrate additional image sizes within WordPress.
• Display thumbnail data: View info about each thumbnail, such as size and name.

Plugin	Add new image sizes	Display thumbnail data
reGenerate Thumbnails Advanced	Yes	Yes
reGenerate Thumbnails Advanced Pro	Yes	Yes
Regenerate Thumbnails	No	Yes
Force Regenerate Thumbnails	No	No
Perfect Images	Yes	Yes
Image Regenerate & Select Crop	Yes	Yes
Real Thumbnail Generator Lite	No	Yes
Real Thumbnail Generator Pro	No	Yes
Simple Image Sizes	No	Yes

Cleaning features

• Clean unknown metadata: Clean up old metadata that isn’t defined in the system sizes. Used after removing plugins or themes with outdated settings. It won’t delete thumbnails from the disk.
• Remove non-existent images: If the main image doesn’t exist, this feature deletes the image, thumbnails, and metadata associated with it. It’s useful for removing images that are no longer on the disk but still appear in the media library.
• Delete unselected thumbnails: Removes redundant or unused thumbnails. Helps optimize storage space.

Plugin	Clean unknown metadata	Remove non-existent images	Delete unselected thumbnails
reGenerate Thumbnails Advanced	No	No	No
reGenerate Thumbnails Advanced Pro	Yes	Yes	Yes
Regenerate Thumbnails	No	No	No
Force Regenerate Thumbnails	No	No	No
Perfect Images	No	No	No
Image Regenerate & Select Crop	No	Yes	No
Real Thumbnail Generator Lite	No	Yes	Yes
Real Thumbnail Generator Pro	No	Yes	Yes
Simple Image Sizes	No	No	No

Additional functionality

• JPEG quality: Adjust the quality of JPEG images to suit your preferences. Reducing the quality level results in decreased file sizes. Note that if you’re using an image optimization plugin like ShortPixel Image Optimizer, or any other plugin, to compress your images, maintaining the quality at 100 is advisable, as the plugin will handle compression tasks.
• Statistics: Access to insights into the regeneration process, such as how many images were processed, how many thumbnails were generated, and so on.
• WP-CLI support: Manage the thumbnail regeneration directly from your terminal.

Plugin	JPEG quality	Statistics	WP-CLI support
reGenerate Thumbnails Advanced	Yes	Yes	No
reGenerate Thumbnails Advanced Pro	Yes	Yes	Yes
Regenerate Thumbnails	No	No	No
Force Regenerate Thumbnails	No	No	No
Perfect Images	No	Yes	No
Image Regenerate & Select Crop	Yes	Yes	No
Real Thumbnail Generator Lite	No	Yes	No
Real Thumbnail Generator Pro	No	Yes	No
Simple Image Sizes	No	Yes	No

For a side-by-side comparison, you can also view this Google Sheet.

Conclusion

In conclusion, considering the features discussed, reGenerate Thumbnails Advanced Pro emerges as the standout choice.

With its set of functionalities including advanced thumbnail regeneration features, pre-defined and custom period regeneration, cleaning features, statistics, WP-CLI support, and more, the Pro version of reGenerate Thumbnails Advanced offers an extensive toolkit for managing thumbnail regeneration for WordPress effectively.

For users seeking simplicity and a free alternative without compromising on essential features, the basic version of RTA remains an excellent option.