by David Lingren 4.8 (201 reviews)

Media Library Assistant

Name: Media Library Assistant
Rating: 4.8 (201 reviews)
Author: David Lingren

Enhances the Media Library; powerful gallery and list shortcodes, full taxonomy support, IPTC/EXIF/XMP/PDF processing, bulk/quick edit.

Media Library Assistant ranks #612 among WordPress.org plugins with 70,000+ active installations, is #16 of 749 in the Language Tools category, a 4.8/5 rating from 201 reviews, and was last updated Sep 7, 2026. Data from WordPress.org, refreshed twice daily — see methodology.

Compatible with WP 7.1

v3.41 Current Version v3.41

Updated 1 week ago Last Update on 07 Sep, 2026

Refreshed 8 hours ago Last Refreshed on

#16 of 749 in Language Tools Top 1% by installs Downloads -79.8% this week Actively maintained

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Rank

#612

— No change

Active Installs

70K+

-1.6%

KW Avg Position

14.8

0.6 better

Downloads

2.8M

+57 today

Support Resolved

80%

— No change

Rating

96%

Review 4.8 out of 5

4.8 (201 reviews)

Next Milestone 80K

Total Progress 7%

70K+ 80K+

Ranks to Climb

Growth Needed

8,000,000

Active Installs

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Rank Changes

Current #612

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Active Installs Growth

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Active Installs 0,000,000+

Growth +0.0%

Peak 0,000,000

Downloads Growth

Downloads

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Reviews & Ratings

4.8

201 reviews

Overall 96%

184 (92%)

8 (4%)

2 (1%)

1 (0%)

6 (3%)

Support Threads Overview

Resolved

Unresolved

Total Threads

Resolved

Unresolved

80%

Resolution Rate

Security History

Source: WPVulnerability

39 known vulnerabilities on record · 20 in the last 24 months · checked 1 week ago

Aug 21, 2026

Media Library Assistant [media-library-assistant] < 3.40

CVE-2026-16959 · Fixed in v3.40
Aug 20, 2026

Media Library Assistant [media-library-assistant] < 3.40

CVE-2026-66600 · Fixed in v3.40
Aug 20, 2026

Media Library Assistant [media-library-assistant] < 3.40

CVE-2026-66601 · Fixed in v3.40
Aug 18, 2026

Media Library Assistant [media-library-assistant] < 3.40

CVE-2026-66591 · Fixed in v3.40
Aug 4, 2026

Media Library Assistant [media-library-assistant] < 3.39

CVE-2026-61963 · Fixed in v3.39
Jun 18, 2026

Media Library Assistant [media-library-assistant] < 3.36

CVE-2026-56012 · Fixed in v3.36
Jun 15, 2026

Media Library Assistant [media-library-assistant] < 3.36

CVE-2026-54198 · Fixed in v3.36
May 28, 2026

Media Library Assistant [media-library-assistant] < 3.36

CVE-2026-6075 · Fixed in v3.36
Apr 6, 2026

Media Library Assistant [media-library-assistant] < 3.35

CVE-2026-34885 · Fixed in v3.35
Apr 6, 2026

Media Library Assistant [media-library-assistant] < 3.35

CVE-2026-34897 · Fixed in v3.35

Showing the 10 most recent of 39 records.

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Plugin Details

Version: 3.41
Last Updated: Sep 07, 2026
Requires WP: 5.3.0+
Tested Up To: 7.1
PHP Version: 7.4 or higher
Author: David Lingren

Support & Rating

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 4.8
Reviews: 201
Support Threads: 5
Resolved: 80%

Keywords

categories images media media library tags

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TL;DR

AI summary of the plugin's readme

This plugin is for WordPress site owners and administrators who manage large or complex media libraries. It adds taxonomy support, metadata processing, and gallery shortcodes to organize, filter, and display Media Library content beyond WordPress's default capabilities.

Full taxonomy support for attachments
IPTC/EXIF/XMP/PDF metadata mapping
Bulk Edit and Quick Edit areas
[mla_gallery] shortcode
[mla_tag_cloud] shortcode
[mla_term_list] shortcode
WPML and Polylang language support
Enhanced Search Media box

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about Media Library Assistant

You can add support for many attachment metadata values such as file size by visiting the Custom Fields tab on the Settings page. There you can define a rule that maps the data to a WordPress custom field and check the "MLA Column" box to make that field a sortable column in the Media/Assistant submenu table. You can also use the field in your [mla_gallery] shortcodes. For example, this shortcode displays a gallery of the ten largest images in the "general" category, with a custom caption: [mla_gallery category="general" mla_caption="{+caption+}<br>{+custom:File Size+}" meta_key="File Size" orderby="meta_value" order="DESC" numberposts=10]

The powerful [mla_gallery] shortcode supports almost all of the query flexibility provided by the WP_Query class. You can find complete documentation in the Settings/Media Library Assistant Documentation tab. A simple example is in the preceding question. Here's an example that displays PDF documents with Att. Category "fauna" or Att. Tag "animal": [mla_gallery post_mime_type="application/pdf" size=icon mla_caption="{+title+}" tax_query="array(array('taxonomy'=>'attachment_category','field'=>'slug','terms'=>'fauna'),array('taxonomy'=>'attachment_tag','field'=>'slug','terms'=>'animal'),'relation'=>'OR')"]

Yes! The [mla_gallery] shortcode supports all MIME types when you add the post_mime_type parameter to your query. You can build a gallery of your PDF documents, plain text files and other attachments. You can mix images and other MIME types in the same gallery, too. Here's an example that displays a gallery of PDF documents, using Imagick and Ghostscript to show the first page of each document as a thumbnail: [mla_gallery post_mime_type=application/pdf post_parent=all link=file mla_viewer=true columns=1 orderby=date order=desc] You can even use [mla_gallery] to compose "gallery" displays for other post types, e.g., posts and pages.

Yes! You can activate or deactivate support for Categories and Tags at any time by visiting the Media Library Assistant Settings page.

No! The Assistant supplies pre-defined Att. Categories and Att. Tags; these are WordPress custom taxonomies, with all of the API support that implies. You can activate or deactivate the pre-defined taxonomies at any time by visiting the Media Library Assistant Settings page.

Yes. Any custom taxonomy you register with the Attachment post type will appear in the Assistant UI. Use the Media Library Assistant Settings page to add support for your taxonomies to the Assistant UI.

You can use other gallery-generating shortcodes to give you the data selection power of [mla_gallery] and the formatting/display power of popular alternatives such as the WordPress.com Jetpack Carousel and Tiled Galleries modules. Any shortcode that accepts "ids=" or a similar parameter listing the attachment ID values for the gallery can be used. Here's an example of a Jetpack Tiled gallery for everything except vegetables: [mla_gallery attachment_category=vegetable tax_operator="NOT IN" mla_alt_shortcode=gallery type="rectangular"] Most lightbox plugins use HTML class= and/or rel= tags to activate their features. [mla_gallery] lets you add this tag information to your gallery output. Here's an example that opens PDF documents in a shadowbox using Easy Fancybox: [mla_gallery post_mime_type=application/pdf post_parent=all link=file size=icon mla_caption='<a class="fancybox-iframe fancybox-pdf" href={+filelink_url+} target=_blank>{+title+}</a>' mla_link_attributes='class="fancybox-pdf fancybox-iframe"'] In the example, the mla_caption= parameter turns the document title into a link to the shadowbox display so you can click on the thumbnail image or the caption to activate the display.

This is a known WordPress problem with multiple support tickets already in Trac, e.g., Ticket #20708(closed defect (bug): duplicate) Wrong posts count in taxonomy table, Ticket #14084(assigned defect (bug)) Custom taxonomy count includes draft & trashed posts, and Ticket #14076(closed defect (bug): duplicate) Misleading post count on taxonomy screen. For example, if you add Tags support to the Assistant and then assign tag values to your attachments, the "Posts" column in the "Tags" edit screen under the Posts admin section includes attachments in the count. If you click on the number in that column, only posts and pages are displayed. There are similar issues with custom post types and taxonomies (whether you use the Assistant or not). The "Attachments" column in the edit screens added by the Assistant shows the correct count because it works in a different way.

No; that's a structural limitation of the WordPress database. However, you can use Categories, Tags and custom taxonomies to organize your images and associate them with posts and pages in any way you like. The [mla_gallery] shortcode makes it easy. You can also use the ids= parameter to compose a gallery from a list of specific images.

Hover over the item you want to modify and click the "Edit" or "Quick Edit" action. Set the ID portion of the Parent Info field to zero (0), then click "Update" to record your changes. If you change your mind, click "Cancel" to return to the main page without recording any changes. You can also click the "Select" button to bring up a list of posts//pages and select one to be the new parent for the item. The "Set Parent" link in the Media/Assistant submenu table also supports changing the parent and unattaching an item.