File Media Renamer for SEO

File Media Renamer for SEO is a lightweight and fast WordPress plugin designed to improve your website’s SEO by allowing you to rename media files directly from the WordPress Media Library.
The plugin automatically updates all references to renamed files throughout your website, ensuring no broken links or missing images.

The plugin focuses on safe renaming, performance, and SEO best practices, with features to keep your media metadata aligned with new filenames and preserve search equity via 301 redirects.

Features

Individual File Renaming

• Rename any media file directly from the WordPress Media Library
• Convert file names to SEO-optimized formats automatically
• Update all references to the renamed file across your website
• Rename all thumbnail sizes along with the main file
• Built-in rename history with quick undo

Bulk Renaming

• Rename multiple files at once via Media Library bulk actions
• Sequential naming (e.g., new-name-1, new-name-2) for consistent batches
• Real-time progress and batch processing up to 50 files

AI Renaming with OpenAI, Claude or Gemini for Bulk and Individual

• Rename multiple files at once via Media Library bulk actions with AI button
• Rename any media file directly from the WordPress Media Library with AI

Automatic Content Updates

• Updates references in posts, pages, custom post types, and metadata
• Handles serialized data structures
• Efficient background processing via WordPress cron
• Automatic cache clearing after operations

SEO Enhancements

• Optionally update media titles to match the new file name
• Automatically update alt text attributes for better accessibility and SEO
• Converts hyphens/underscores to readable titles

Redirect Management

• Creates 301 redirects from old file URLs to new ones
• Stores redirects in a dedicated database table for performance
• Handles redirects for all thumbnail sizes

Advanced Features

• Prevents filename conflicts by generating unique names
• Validates files before renaming for safety

Usage

Individual File Renaming

1. Go to Media → Library.
2. Click on a file to open the attachment details.
3. Enter the new SEO name in the SEO Name field.
4. Click Save SEO Name — all references will update automatically.

Bulk Renaming

1. Switch the Media Library to List view.
2. Select multiple files and choose Rename from Bulk actions.
3. Enter a base name and click Start Rename to process all selected files.

History and Undo

• View the rename history for any file in the attachment details.
• Click any previous name to revert instantly (last 2 versions kept).

Settings

Find settings under Media → FMR Settings:

• Rename Title — Automatically update the media title when renaming files
• Rename Alt Text — Automatically update the alt text attribute when renaming files

Technical Details

• Custom table: wp_fmrseo_redirects for redirect mappings
• Background processing for large operations (WordPress cron)
• File validation and conflict prevention
• Optimized database queries and cache management

Requirements

• WordPress 4.0 or higher
• PHP 7.0 or higher
• Write permissions for the uploads directory

1. Download the plugin as a ZIP file.
2. Go to Plugins → Add New in your WordPress dashboard.
3. Click Upload Plugin and select the ZIP file.
4. Click Install Now and then Activate.
5. The plugin will automatically create the necessary database tables.

1. 

   Rename media files directly from the library

2. 

   Bulk rename interface with progress indicator

3. 

   SEO settings panel

1.0.0

• Initial public release

1.0.1

• Fix redirect generation

1.2

• Add Claude (Anthropic) and Gemini (Google) as AI Rename providers, alongside OpenAI
• Fix a bug where thumbnail sizes sharing an identical physical file (common with page builders that register many crop/breakpoint sizes) could be left pointing at the old filename after a rename, breaking srcset
• Fix a bug where a batch or multi-thumbnail rename could silently skip updating the title, slug (post_name) and alt text for some files, because a background scheduling check ignored the specific file being processed
• Title, slug and alt text are now updated immediately when a file is renamed, instead of depending on WordPress cron
• Add a “Retry failed” button to Batch AI Rename so files that failed (rate limits, provider errors, timeouts) can be retried without restarting the whole batch
• Add clearer, provider-specific error messages for AI rename failures (e.g. when a model runs out of output tokens on internal reasoning, or is rate-limited)
• Increase the AI response token budget to avoid failures on models that use “thinking”/reasoning tokens (Gemini 2.5+/3.x, Claude Sonnet)
• Add a client-side timeout to Batch/AI rename requests so a hung request now fails gracefully instead of freezing the whole batch indefinitely
• Fix plugin JS/CSS assets not updating in the browser after a plugin update (automatic cache-busting)
• General sanitization and code cleanliness pass
• Add support for OpenAI’s reasoning models (o1/o3, GPT-5.x, GPT-5.6 Sol/Terra/Luna, GPT-6 Astra and future versions under these families) by sending a low reasoning effort automatically – keeps filename generation fast and cheap instead of using the model’s default (often “medium”) reasoning depth
• Classic, non-reasoning OpenAI models (e.g. gpt-4o, gpt-4.1-mini) are unaffected – the request payload is unchanged for them
• Update the default OpenAI model for new installs to gpt-5.6-luna; existing saved model settings are not changed
• Add a clear, logged error message if a selected OpenAI model rejects the reasoning effort parameter, instead of a generic failure