"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.

[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).

[shamess]

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.

[c3mdigital]

Scan for attachments only looks in the database it is not a file importer.

[SergeyBiryukov]

"Scan for lost attachments" just looks for media files attached to no longer existing posts.

​Add From Server plugin might be helpful for importing files into Media Library.