The comments section of a blog is important to gauge the ability of your content to engage an audience. While the usual way of commenting involves typing text in a field, there are now other forms of media that can be included in comments, including image files.
For whatever purpose, you may want to allow your blog or website visitors to include images with their comments. Images on comments can help users express their thoughts or convey their message with more than just words. It’s also necessary when you want your commenters to include a screenshot with their comment.
Thankfully, you don’t have to mess with your website’s CSS to add this function. This is can be done quite simply by installing a certain plugin to your WordPress blog. I’ve found a plugin for this.
Free WordPress Plugin to let Readers Upload Image in the Comment section:
Comment Image
This is a simple plugin that allows uploading JPG, PNG, or GIF images to the comments section. There is little set-up to do after installation, and you don’t even have to change anything if you see that it works fine on your blog.
The screenshot below is the settings page for the plugin, which is found on Settings>Comment Image. There are three ways to embed the upload feature: by WordPress hook, Javascript, or manually. The best way is usually by WordPress hook or Javascript — whatever works well with your theme.
You can also edit the image field label and the size of the image thumbnail (in pixels).
Don’t forget to hit Save when done.
You should now see the image upload option in any posts or page with comments enabled.
While this plugin is very simple to set up, it’s also limited as to how the Browse/Upload button appears in the comments section. Its default position (after the “Post Comment” button) makes it easy for a user to miss the image upload option.
Should you use the plugin?
Personally, I love WordPress’s default comment feature but it certainly lacks features that other 3rd party commenting system offers. By adding functionality to let your users upload images, you will make your comment section more rich & usable. Comment image is one plugin that I suggest you to use. With this plugin, the image in the comments can be easily implemented for your blog.
Also, you need to proactively moderate all comments on your blog, as it’s your responsibility. If you do not have much experience with blog comment moderation, you should read these two amazing posts to clear your understanding:
- How should every blogger moderate blog comments?
- How a single blog comment made $650 for me & takeaway for you
- Know the difference: When blog comments are useful & when it’s harmful
Hello Is there any way to add image upload button in comment section without plugin?
Any script or Any framework?
Thank You
You have raised a good topic with this article. Sometimes, it can be handy to allow a user to post an image in the comment section. But all in all, I think, allowing a user to post an image in the comment is not a good idea as it can affect your SEO. It can affect page speed and image optimization too.
I’ve tried to attach image after installing the plugins you suggested here one by one. But, no plugin helped me to upload an image in the comment box. I’ve then checked the plugins details and these plugins are not updated for long time and also not tested with the latest version of WordPress. Would you now suggest another plugin which will help me to let my audiences to upload images in the comment box!
@Samdra
These plugins should work. One of them is updated 4 months back & another one almost an year back which is normal.
Hello KIM
I Installed Comment Attachment but attachment field not appear.
Do you know how can i fix this problem or is this problem because of my template or comment template?
Or it’s because of WP Version.
Thank you
I take it Harsh this is still a WordPress comment section that has plugins to enhance it then? I am in the middle of writing a post about different types and how they get used, sometimes right on for what the sites audience primarily is and sometimes wildly off.
The thing I notice the most is the most popular bloggers that are blogging about this subject and WordPress and SEO, Hosting and so on, have fully login able comment sections.
For a new blogger heavily dependent on bloggers and webmasters to get going, or even a old popular one, getting it going or staying popular would greatly depend on what type of comment section you use, or how you treat it.
Now I am going to go read your piece on follow or nofollow, since that is another issue I get a wide range of opinions on.
This is a very wonderful tutorial Kim,
I never knew that its possible to upload images on wordpress comment until now and thats the beauty of using wordpress over any other content management system.
Thanks for sharing.
Hello kim,
Another useful plugin for wordpress sites, Thanks for sharing it with us I am searching for this type of plugin for my forum blog in which people can share screenshots in comments
I am satisfied with this plugin 🙂
@Kim,
I want to ask you”when we allow users to upload images in comment section , may it affect page loading speed?? “
yes it effects . the biggest problem is that the images that are being uploaded are not compressed so it will take time to load
It will have an effect so it’s important to put a limit on the image file size, or educate your blog visitors as to what your preferred image type and file size is.
In all my years blogging I never knew you could use images in a blog comment. Wish I knew this aways back. Awesome blog post!
Hello Kim, I have the following questions regarding images in the comments.
Commenting is also treated as one of the SEO factors. What will be the impact of adding images in comments on SEO of the blog post? What type of posts would be perfect in which readers should be allowed to add images along with the comments?
Thanks A lot ,
Yesterday , I asked one question related to this .. and I am satisfied with this.
Thank you.
That’s so simple using those plugins we can allow visitors to insert images.
Thank you for sharing such good tools…
Hello Kim Barloso. It’s Another interesting article from You. I Liked the Post. But What about Page Speed. If there are more comments with Images?. I thought page Speed down. Can U Solve it. And sorry for my Bad English. I’m Learning English Now.
Hi kim,
Both the plugins are valuable to provide a rich experience to readers for commenting. However, if I talk personally. I am not in the favor of it. I have two reasons.
1. It will increase the page load.
2. It will increase the time in the filtration.
IS there any plugin that can filter image or any other file?
It increases the burden of blog admin that He or She always have to monitor their commentators activity whether they are not uploading any vulnerable file and allowing file uploading on the server may be harmful to the blog server.
hope you are getting my point.
Have a great week ahead.
🙂
While this is certainly a great way to boost user engagement, on some hosting platform this can pose a serious security issue. It is surprisingly simple to disguise a PHP script as a gif image. I strongly suggest using plugins like these only in combination with some .htaccess magic preventing scripts from being executed within your uploads folder. Especially on shared hosting platforms.
Thanks for the suggestion! It certainly helps adding another layer of security when using these types of plugins.
Hi Kim!
Another Awesome and Unique Post! Cheers for You! I have been blogging for over 10 years now but never tried anything like this. Maybe it is time for some change!