Description

Instantly upload photos from Unsplash, Pixabay or Pexels to your website without leaving WordPress!

Instant Images is the fastest and easiest way to upload high quality FREE photos from unsplash.com and Pixabay directly to your media library.

The perfect tool for users who want to save time and frustration by uploading images directly inside their WordPress installation and for developers who want to prototype and develop using real world imagery.

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Features

Image Search – The Instant Images search let’s you quickly find and upload images for any subject in a matter of seconds!
Image Orientation – Filter search results by landscape, portrait or square images.
Time Saver – Quickly upload amazing stock photos without leaving the comfort of your WordPress admin.
Theme/Plugin Developers – A great tool for developers who want to prototype and develop using real world imagery.
Gutenberg – Instant Images directly integrates with Gutenberg as a plugin sidebar.
Media Modal – Instant Images is available as a tab in the WordPress Media Modal.
Page Builders – Instant Images integrates with page builders such as Elementor, Beaver Builder, Brizy and Divi.
Edit Image Metadata – Easily edit image filename, alt text and caption prior to uploading to your media library.
Accessibility – Automatically include a relevant alt description for screen readers, visually reduced users, and SEO.
Easy to Use – It couldn’t get much more simple, just click an image and it’s automatically uploaded to your media library for use on your site.
No Unsplash Account Needed – An Unsplash account is not required for use of this plugin. Just activate and you’re ready to go.

Tested Browsers

Firefox (Mac + PC)
Chrome (Mac + PC)
Safari (Mac)
IE 11 >

How Can You Contribute?

Pull requests can be submitted via GitHub.

Website

https://connekthq.com/plugins/instant-images/

Screenshots

Dashboard - Browse, search and upload images to your WordPress media library
Search - Find and upload images for any subject in a matter of seconds!
Image Metadata - Easily edit image filename, alt text and caption prior to uploading to your media library.
Post/Page Edit - Unsplash images in a lightbox on your post edit/new/post pages.
Gutenberg post edit screens. Add as featured image, insert into post or just upload photo.
Instant Images is available in the WordPress media modal as a custom tab. It is available in front end page builder like Elementor, Beaver Builder and Divi.

Installation

How to install Instant Images.

Using The WordPress Dashboard

Navigate to the ‘Add New’ in the plugins dashboard
Search for ‘Instant Images’
Click ‘Install Now’
Activate the plugin on the Plugin dashboard

Uploading in WordPress Dashboard

Navigate to the ‘Add New’ in the plugins dashboard
Navigate to the ‘Upload’ area
Select instant-images.zip from your computer
Click ‘Install Now’
Activate the plugin in the Plugin dashboard

Using FTP

Download instant-images.zip
Extract the instant-images directory to your computer
Upload the instant-images directory to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
Activate the plugin in the Plugin dashboard

FAQ

Can I legally use these photos on my website?

All photos published on Unsplash are licensed under Creative Commons Zero which means you can copy, modify, distribute and use the photos for free, including commercial purposes, without asking permission from or providing attribution to the photographer or Unsplash/Pixabay.
Learn More

Can I search for individual photos by ID?

Yes! You can enter id:{photo_id} into the search box to return a single result.
e.g. id:YiUi00uqKk8

I’m unable to download images, what is the cause of this?

Unfortunately, there are a number of reasons why Instant Images may not work in your current hosting/server environment. Please read through the FAQ on our website to view some potential causes.

Can I update the filename or metadata prior to upload?

Yes, click the cog (options) icon in the bottom corner of the image to bring up an edit screen where you can modify the filename, title, alt and caption before the image is uploaded.

Are the images upload to the Media Library?

Yes, once clicked, the images are processed on the server then uploaded to the Media Library into the various sizes set in your theme.

Are raw uploads stored on the server?

No, once an image has be uploaded and resized the raw download will be removed from your server.

Are there server requirements?

Yes, this plugin is required to write temporary images into an /instant-images directory within your WordPress uploads directory for image processing prior to being uploaded to the media library.

Some hosts lock down their servers and you may be required to update your php.ini or .htaccess in order to use this plugin.

Do I need an account at Unsplash?

No, there is no need to sign up from an Unsplash account to access the photos server via Instant Images.

Do I need an account at Pixabay?

No, we provide an API for you to use, however you can get your own by signing up for a free account at Pixabay.

Do I need an account at Pexels?

No, we provide an API for you to use, however you can get your own by signing up for a free account at Pexels.

Reviews

Renaat January 9, 2022

This is a great plugin, I love to be able to stay in my WordPress site and add open images to my blog post. This plugin does it best to integrate multiple open image sources. I was looking for a plugin like this for a long time. Easy to set up!

nayi10 September 11, 2021

This is exactly what I've been looking for. Thanks for the good job done.

istara November 9, 2021

This is an excellent plug-in, five-stars now it attributes the photographer in the Caption field. (It would still be cool if it hyperlinked to them as well!) But all in all a brilliant plug-in, 100% recommend. Very easy to install and use, it works instantly.

KingDingbat February 17, 2021

WOW this plugin is a time saver! I love it so much! I always get all of my stock photos from unsplash and this totally cuts out the work of doing it. It lets you search the entire unsplash library from your website's media library and in one click they are on your website and ready to use. GENIUS!

chasebros December 29, 2020

Thanks guys this is an amazing addition!

yoannprod19 December 25, 2020

Awesome plugin, a time saver ! Thank you.

Read all 33 reviews

Contributors & Developers

“Instant Images – One Click Unsplash, Pixabay and Pexels Uploads” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

“Instant Images – One Click Unsplash, Pixabay and Pexels Uploads” has been translated into 5 locales. Thank you to the translators for their contributions.

Translate “Instant Images – One Click Unsplash, Pixabay and Pexels Uploads” into your language.

Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Changelog

4.6.1 – January 14, 2022

NEW: Added default API keys for all API providers 🎉 . Default API keys can still be overwritten in the plugin settings shouls you want to use your own key.
NEW: Added rate-limit checker to determine the status of the API and display an alert warning if the limit has been exceeded.

4.6.0.1 – January 3, 2022

HOTFIX: Hotfix for accidentaly delete_options function left in whilst testing. Sorry about that!

4.6.0 – January 2, 2022

NEW: Added Pexels integration. This requires a valid API key.
FIX: Fixed issue with filtering Unsplash search results by ‘all’.
FIX: Various admin UI/UX updates and tweaks to improve the look and feel.

4.5.1 – December 27, 2021

NEW: Added Pixabay photo filters (Type, Category, Colors and Orientation).
NEW: Added Unsplash search filters for Color, Orientation and Order.
NEW: Added new instant_images_pixabay_safesearch & instant_images_unsplash_content_filter filters that allow for modifying the flags the indicate the types of suitable images that should be returned. Get more information in our FAQ.
NEW: Added Pixabay API constant that allows for setting Pixabay API key via site constant. e.g. define( 'INSTANT_IMAGES_PIXABAY_KEY', 'YOUR-KEY-HERE' );
UPDATE: Revamped filtering menus and orientation options.
UPDATE: Other UI/UX updates to make the plugin more visually appealing.
UPDATE: Improved plugin accessibility across various sections.

4.5.0 – October 28, 2021

NEW: 🎉 Pixabay! We’ve added support for Pixabay images. This requires a valid API key.
NEW: Added button to auto-generate Photo attribution in image caption.
NEW: Added uninstaller script to remove plugin settings.
UPDATE: Updated styling and functionality of photo detail editor.
UPDATE: Various UI/UX updates.

4.4.0.3 – July 30, 2021

Fix: WP 5.8 issue resolved – added fix for Instant Images causing the Widget Block Editor to fail due to JS error.
Update: Code clean up.

4.4.0.2 – June 7, 2021

Fix: Added fix for CSS conflict causing issues in the WordPress menus section.
Fix: Removed browser console error with regards activeFrame.querySelector is not a function that could appear when creating a gallery.
Updated: Improved coding standard and overall code quality.

4.4.0.1 – May 3, 2021

UPDATE – Updated Instant Images settings page to sanitize inputs before saving.

4.4.0 – March 26, 2021

UPDATE – 🎉 Massive improvement to image download speeds by dynamically resizing the initial download before sending image to media library.
- Intitial testing revealed up to 4x faster download speeds than previous version of Instant Images 🤯.
NEW – Added instant_images_after_upload hook that is dispatch after a successful upload allowing users to hook into the attachment and run custom functionality.
UPDATE – Upgraded Axios JS libray to 0.21.1.

4.3.5 – August 14, 2020

FIX – Fixed issue with WP 5.5 and REST API warning messages when WP_DEBUG is true.
FIX – Fixed issue with undefined $suffix variable when WP_DEBUG is true.

4.3.4 – August 11, 2020

FIX – Fixed issue with Yoast SEO meta boxes not appearing in Classic Editor.
UPDATE – Code cleanup and some refactoring of media enqueue scripts.

4.3.3 – August 10, 2020

NEW – Adding Instant Images tab to Media Modal windows everywhere, including page builders and taxonomy terms pages.
NEW – Added new plugin setting to hide the Instant Images tab in the Media Modals

4.3.2 – May 28, 2020

UPDATE – Switched REST API methods to POST requests from PUT. This will hopefully reduce issues users are having with PUT being disabled on their servers.
UPDATE – Added Instant Images media button back to Classic Editor post screen.

4.3.1 – April 13, 2020

FIX – Fixed issue with Instant Images causing Yoast SEO metabox to not show correctly in the classic WordPress editor. Not really sure why, but the Instant Images JS dependencies seemed to interfere with Yoast.
FIX – Added user privileges checks to the new Media Modal functionality.

4.3.0 – April 9, 2020

NEW – Adding Instant Images tab to the WordPress Media Modal.
NEW – When images are uploaded directly to a post the current Post ID is attached to the upload as the parent post.
NEW – Adding default alt text directly from Unsplash API.
UPDATE – Updated image uploader API to hopefully improve stability of the upload and resize process. The new process uses core WordPress functions for the upload.
UPDATE – Switching tab navigation from <a/> to` for better accessibility.
FIX – Added a fix for JS error regarding PluginSidebar registration on non-gutenberg editor pages.

4.2.0 – December 14, 2019

NEW – Added image orientation search filter
FIX – Fixed issue with instant images being rendered in Gutenberg editor for users without permissions.
UPDATE – Updated WordPress role requirement from edit_theme_options to upload_files.

4.1.0 – July 23, 2019

NEW – Added support for updating image title prior to upload.
NEW – Added link to edit image after upload process completes.
UPDATE – Updated functionality to trigger photo upload immediately after triggering a Save when editing image metadata.

4.0.1 – April 18, 2019

FIX – Fixed issue where Instant Images sidebar plugin would not appear in Gutenberg if removed as a pinned item.

4.0.0 – February 12, 2019

4.0 adds Gutenberg support. You can now access instant images directly from inside the block editor.
NEW – Added Instant Images to Gutenberg as a Plugin Sidebar.
NEW – Added Gutenberg featured image support.
NEW – Added Gutenberg Create Image Block support.
UPDATE – Improved a11y (accessibility) of photo listing items.
UPDATE – Updated REST API methods to prefix function names.
UPDATE – Various other UI/UX enhancements.

3.0 – September 21, 2017

** NEW – Instant Images has been completely re-built using React and the WordPress REST API.

2.0 – January 12, 2017

Initial Commit
Updating plugin from UnsplashWP to Instant Images

WordPress.org