"Scan for lost attachments" should look for orphaned files in the /uploads/ folder

[shamess]

I recently moved my blog over to another host, and just copy and pasted my /wp-content/uploads/ folder into the new destination. I've now got four years worth of media, but none of it is in the media library.

I assumed the button on the Media Library (under Unattached) would add these files to the database, but it didn't.

Extending this use case, this feature could also be used as a bulk "these files are already on the server, I don't want to upload them" (which is the only way to add files to the media library, no?) action.

How did you move the blog? Its seems that the issue would be that the attachment data is no longer in the database.

I will say though, it might be an issue due to absolute paths to media items, which we used to do (it was a bug).

Replying to nacin:

How did you move the blog? Its seems that the issue would be that the attachment data is no longer in the database.

I will say though, it might be an issue due to absolute paths to media items, which we used to do (it was a bug).

It was a new install, and I did the export/import routine. The media/attachments weren't in the export file for whatever reason, so they couldn't have been downloaded using the import tool.

I feel like the import tool would be a slow way to transfer potentially gigs of media too. I had all the content archived and compressed into a much smaller format which was easier to drop in the right place.