How To Create An Image Gallery In WordPress
- Last Update: April 20, 2025
So you want to share stunning photos with the world through your WordPress website.
But you are facing problems in making a gallery for those photos.
No to worry
In this article, I will show you how to easily create an image gallery in WordPress that makes your photos look even better.
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If you have added multiple images, you would have noticed that all those images will appear one after another.
It doesn’t look great, and your users will have to scroll a lot to view them all.
To solve this issue, you should create a gallery that displays images in a grid layout with columns and rows.
This not only gives your website a professional look, but you can also show thumbnails for your images so that users will click on them to see the full image.
Discloser: ElegantEspace is supported by readers like yourself. We may earn an affiliate commission when you purchase through our links . Commissions do not affect our editors’ opinions or evaluations.
Why Add A Photo Gallery To WordPress?
1. Improve SEO – Google factors images and galleries in SEO rankings.
2. Showcase Products – If you have an online store, an image gallery allows you to showcase a variety of products.
3. Display Social Proof – To build social proof, use galleries to display customer photos or testimonials.
4. Build Trust – Visitors will trust your brand and become loyal readers, subscribers, and customers if your blog appears more professional.
5. More Social Shares – Many WordPress photo gallery plugins include social sharing functionality, which can help your blog gain more traffic.
Two Ways To Create An Image Gallery
Method 1. Create an Image Gallery without a Plugin
Method 2. Create an Image Gallery By Using Plugins
Method 1. Create An Image Gallery Without Using A Plugin
Yes, you read it right you can make an image gallery by using the built-in features of WordPress.
However, this feature is very basic and does not have many options, but it gets the job done.
To do that, first, you need to open the text editor of your post or page where you want to add the image gallery.
Click on the ‘+’ option followed by the gallery icon as shown below.
Once you click on that, you will be asked to upload or go to the media library to create a gallery.
Either you can upload the images directly from your computer.
or
you can select photos you have previously uploaded to the media library.
After uploading and selecting your images click on the ‘ Create a new gallery ‘ option present at the bottom of the page.
On the next page, you will get an option to add captions to the images.
If you wish you can add the caption and then click on the ‘Insert gallery’ button.
Then edit screen will open with the gallery block setting panel.
Here you can choose the number of columns for each row, and choose where to link the gallery images.
Once you are satisfied with your settings, click on the publish button and visit your website to see your image gallery in action.
That’s all.
Wasn’t that simple, sophisticated and easy?
Of course, it is, if you want to make a simple image gallery you can go with this method.
However, the gallery’s appearance depends on your theme and is not fully mobile-responsive.
If you want to add more professional-looking image galleries to your site, then you should consider this next method.
Method 2. Create An Image Gallery Using Plugins
There are thousands of plugins available to set up and optimize a gallery in WordPress.
In this tutorial method, we will be using g Envira Gallery plugins.
It is one of the most popular and reliable WordPress gallery plugins through which you can make a beautiful and responsive image gallery.
You can either install the free version of this plugin or go with the premium plan.
You must check our in-depth guide on image sliders if you are willing to add an image/video slider to your WordPress website.
Coming back to the topic.
If you are a professional and own a professional gallery website then you must consider buying the premium plan of the Envira plugin.
Once you install and activate the plugin, you will see a new option of ‘Envira Gallery’ on the left side of your WordPress dashboard.
Click on ‘Envira Gallery’ followed by ‘Settings’ to enter your license key.
You can get the license key from your Envira Gallery account.
After verifying your license key, create your first gallery by clicking on the ‘ Add new ’ option.
Here you can provide a title for your gallery and then you can choose the images from your media library or you can directly upload it from your computer.
Once you upload your images, they will appear in the images section.
Here you can add the caption, title, and alt text to each image.
In order to change your gallery settings like:
- The number of columns
- Title and caption positioning
- Margins
- Heights
- Thumbnail sizes
- Image dimensions
You need to click on the ‘Config’ tab to make the necessary changes.
After that click on the ‘Lightbox’ tab.
The lightbox popup allows users to enlarge images and browse them without ever leaving the page.
The default settings will work efficiently, but you can review the options and change them as per your desire. Like themes and Image sizes.
That’s all you are ready to publish the newly created image gallery by clicking on the ‘Publish’ button present at the top right corner of the page.
Upon clicking on the publish button, you will get a shortcode that you can use wherever you want to display the gallery in your post.
However, you will also get the shortcode of Envira Gallery on your post/ page editor page.
Click on the Add New Block icon and select the Envira Gallery block.
Clicking on it will bring up a popup where you can select the gallery you just created. Search the gallery by its name or find it by clicking on the dropdown arrow icon.
Click on the gallery you want to display and then click on the ‘insert’ button.
You can now save and publish your post.
After that visit your website to see it in action.
When you click on any image, it will open the image in the lightbox popup and you can browse images by pressing the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard.
Your gallery will look equally great on mobile as well.
Users will be able to tap on an image to enlarge it and swipe to view the next or previous images.
That’s it.
I hope this article helped you in creating your brand-new image gallery.
You might wanna see our guide on how to fix common issues with images in WordPress.
But before that let’s have a look at the best gallery plugin for WordPress websites.
7 Top WordPress Gallery Plugins To Showcase Your Images
1. Envira Gallery
2. Modula
3. Photo Gallery by 10Web
4. NextGEN Gallery
5. FooGallery
6. Gmedia Photo Gallery
7. Jetpack
Are you tired of checking hundreds of thousands of WordPress gallery plugins to see which is the best? And fed up with paid suggestions.
Not to worry.
To help you find that plugin, we’ve compiled a list of the best WordPress photo gallery plugins and dissected their features lists.
The listed plugins are reliable and best, you can go with anyone.
Based on their speed, performance, ease of use and other features I have compared them for a clear and transparent review.
Why Photo Gallery Plugin Is Important?
Almost every website owner creates a photo gallery at some point, keeping that in mind WordPress has included a built-in gallery feature.
By using those features you can make a simple photo gallery.
However, this default photo gallery lacks the functionality and elegant appeal that most users want.
That is why people use add-on plugins to make a beautiful and attractive photo gallery.
Choosing the right WordPress photo gallery plugin will not only improve the visual appeal but also improve the overall user experience on your website.
1. Envira Gallery
Simple, sophisticated and easy-to-use UI that seamlessly blends with your WordPress admin area.
Easy to choose, upload and customization option of an image makes it extremely beginner-friendly.
It also comes with a Gutenberg block allowing you to easily add photo galleries to any WordPress post and page.
Once you complete creating a gallery, you will get a shortcode that you can use to add that gallery to any WordPress post or page.
Isn’t that a cool feature?
2. Modula
Like Envira Gallery, Modula is also a freemium WordPress gallery plugin.
It’s user-friendly and the flexibility of the plugin gives a better experience to both users and developers.
This plugin specializes in responsive grid galleries, whether you want to create a standard grid or customise your grid to look like a mosaic.
When you upgrade to a paid plan, you will gain access to lightboxes, speed optimization, gallery sorting and filters, and other gallery formats such as slider, slideshow, video, and much more.
3. Photo Gallery By 10Web
Photo Gallery by 10web is another popular option with deep functionality, including an option to sell images with the premium eCommerce extension.
The free version includes some simple grid gallery formats, a file manager, and settings for adding watermarks, creating thumbnails, and linking to social accounts. You can even make slideshows and lightboxes.
The paid versions allow you to create more galleries and include features such as additional gallery layouts, rating and commenting, social sharing, ecommerce support, audio and video support, and auto-updates from Instagram and Facebook feeds.
4. NextGEN Gallery
Currently one of the most popular gallery plugins for WordPress, with over 1 million active installs and 14 million downloads (and counting) is NextGen an Imagely product.
NextGEN is a little different from the other two.
Rather than using built-in WordPress features, it has its own UI, database, and separate folder to store the images.
Since it has its own UI (user interface) beginners will find difficulty in creating a gallery.
But once you understand it will be very easy to use.
5. FooGallery
Foo Gallery is very similar to Envira Gallery.
The simple user interface is very easy to use and is beginner-friendly.
Foo gallery also adds a button on top of the post editor making it extremely simple for you to add a gallery on the go to any post or page.
Galleries in the free version are also quite customizable. You can change the borders, hover effects, and loading icons and effects, and then organize your galleries into albums to keep track of your assets better.
FooGallery Pro is reasonably priced and includes additional templates, video gallery support, image filters, gallery filtering, lazy loading, and more hover and loading effects.
6. Gmedia Photo Gallery
Gmedia Photo Gallery allows you to create slick, visually appealing galleries that you can customize with a wide range of back-end settings.
Gmedia includes four different blocks to help you display images. There are galleries, albums, categories, and tag blocks.
The pro version of Gmedia supports video and audio, image editing from inside your dashboard, and adds social and email sharing as well.
7. Jetpack
Jetpack is a popular multi-purpose plugin from Automattic that brings several WordPress.com features to self-hosted WordPress installations.
One of those features is an enhancement to the core WordPress gallery functionality.
It provides a free tiled gallery block. This block extends the native WordPress gallery feature to provide a more sleek and customizable gallery design.
Users can format their galleries as square tiles, a circular grid, tiled columns, or a mosaic, and some basic customizations are also available.
This tool is intended for those who want simple, clean image grids without having to do too much extra work or installing another plugin.
Why Should You Not Use Any Random Gallery Plugins?
The major problem with most of the WordPress gallery plugins is that they are slow.
Since it is slow, it will impact the overall speed of your website.
As technology keeps on updating most user has started browsing the website through different devices like tablets and smartphone.
So it is very important that your photo gallery is responsive in nature, this is where most of the plugins lag.
The other problem with the WordPress gallery plugin is the ease of use.
Most of them are bloated with too many features which makes the plugin very complicated and starts irritating you.
As a user what you will want from an ideal photo gallery plugin?
- It should be fast
- It should be easy to use
- It should have all the necessary features like lightbox, Image navigation, pagination, etc.
These features of your photo gallery plugins not only give a great user experience but also helps in improving the SEO of your website.
Features Of Photo Gallery Plugins
What makes something out of the box? Definitely its features and its uniqueness.
One can only create a beautiful photo gallery if plugins have functionality like:
1. Responsive Design
2. Lightbox
3. Pagination
4. Navigation
5. Slideshow
6. Password Protection
7. Full-screen mode
8. Social media sharing options
9. Watermark
10. Image Optimization
11. Speed
12. Ease of use
However, as we already discussed at the beginning of the post, having too many features also hampers your website’s performance.
So choose the gallery plugin very wisely and as per the website usage and needs.
As a beginner setting up all these things is a little difficult. But not to worry you will become a master.
I hope you found this article helpful.
Now you can easily choose the best photo gallery plugins.
Which is your favourite one?
Let us know by commenting below.
FAQs On Image Gallery
How do I create a dynamic gallery in WordPress?
Mostly the premium version of the photo gallery plugin comes with dynamic features.
To create them, install and activate the pro plugin and customize them accordingly.
What is a dynamic image gallery?
Dynamic photo galleries (or video galleries) are created when you tag photos or videos and they automatically get inserted into an existing gallery or into multiple galleries.
What is a dynamic gallery in Elementor?
With Essential Addons for Elementor, you can create a Dynamic Gallery as it comes with beautiful layouts and easily style-able contents.
The best part of this element is the capability of generating galleries from any custom contents.
What is a carousel in WordPress?
A WordPress image carousel is a type of image gallery that slides automatically from one image to the next.
This means you can show multiple images in a slideshow gallery instead of posting single images.
Does Elementor have a image gallery?
Yes, you can use the Pro version of Elementor, which has its own image gallery and slider widget.
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It’s always helpful to read content from other writers
and practice a little something from their websites.
No problem Johny, I am glad that you found this post helpful.
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It was helpful. Keep on posting!