How to Increase the Max Upload Size in WordPress

Having a low WordPress upload size limit prevents you from uploading large files, plugins, and themes. If you're building a website that is media-heavy, this can prove to be an obstacle. It's imperative to increase the upload size in WordPress or server (even both) depending on the case.

Depending on your hosting provider and server, there are a few ways to go around this. On our managed WordPress hosting the PHP limits are yours to change from the control panel, no ticket needed. We'll try to cover everything in this blog post and show you how to increase the maximum file upload size in WordPress.

Let's jump in!

What is the Maximum Upload Size in WordPress

Uploading large files to a server will consume server resources. To prevent users from potentially causing server timeouts, the default maximum upload size in WordPress will range from 4 MB to 128 MB. Usually, the hosting provider sets this max upload size in WordPress.

The default max upload file size at Snappyhost is set to 512 MB

To verify this, go to your WordPress site's Media Library. And you should see the following message 'Maximum upload file size: 2 GB.'

Another way to check this is to navigate to Tools -> Site Health, then select the info tab. From there you will need to select the menu item Media Handling. Finally, you can see the 'Max size of an uploaded file' value displayed.

Why Increase the Maximum Upload File Size in WordPress

There are numerous reasons as to why you need to increase your WordPress site's maximum upload file size. Here are some of the most common ones:

• You wish to install a large theme, or plugin through the WordPress dashboard.
• Updating your WordPress site on a regular basis is a great way to keep your visitors engaged and coming back for more. That includes uploading images, videos, audio, and other media on a regular basis. However, that's not always possible when there is a file size limit in place.
• You want to upload a large video or image as your site's background or header.
• You're planning to sell digital files such as ebooks, photos, videos, themes and plugins directly from your site. Sometimes, these files can run up to hundreds of megabytes, even more in some cases.

These are just some examples so let's dive in and learn how we can increase the upload file size limit.

5 Ways to Increase the Max Upload File Size in WordPress

There are many ways you can fix the WordPress maximum upload size issue. We'll go over the 10 ways to increase this value.

1. Contact Your Hosting Provider - If you're having issues with uploading files and size limits, you can reach out to your hosting provider for technical assistance, it's one of the quickest solutions, increasing the upload limit is a task for tech support. We're always happy to do this at Snappyhost, so don't hesitate to get in touch via live chat or through a ticket.
2. Increase the Max Upload File Size in WordPress Multisite - If you're running a WordPress multisite, then you can modify the max upload file size of your network. To do this, first head to your Network admin dashboard, and then navigate to settings. From here, scroll down till you find the Upload Settings section. You'll find the max upload file size field in this area, in which you can increase the value to allow for larger files.
3. Update Your '.htaccess' File - If your web server is running on Apache, you can update your site's .htaccess file to increase the max upload size in WordPress. You can find your .htaccess file in the WordPress site's root directory.
4. Create or Edit the existing '.user.ini' File - If your current hosting provider has locked down the global PHP settings, they may have configured the server to work with .user.ini files instead of .php.ini files. From these two files, you can edit the core values for the maximum upload file size.
5. cPanel PHP options - If your hosting provider uses the cPanel dashboard to help you manage your server and site config, you can change the max upload file size through its interface. To do this, head to your cPanel dashboard, and click Select PHP Version, under the software section. From this page, if you select the Options tab, you can scroll down to find the values to increase the upload max file size.

Summary

As you've seen, increasing the maximum upload file size in WordPress isn't too hard. Whether you're building a WordPress site that media-rich, a gallery website, or even a portfolio site, it's just a case of knowing where to look and what commands or tools to use.