How To Upload User-Submitted Files to the Media Library

Do you want to upload user-submitted files to the media library? This snippet will handle uploading files to your media library.

Instructions

1. Add this code to your theme’s functions.php file or in a site-specific plugin.
2. All uploaded files are stored in the $_FILES array, so you will need to loop through the $_FILES array and pass each file array to the upload_user_file() function. You can use this code in your form handler:
   

   if( ! empty( $_FILES ) ) {
     foreach( $_FILES as $file ) {
       if( is_array( $file ) ) {
         $attachment_id = upload_user_file( $file );
       }
     }
   }
   

3. Remember that if you want your form to be able to handle file uploads, then you need to add the enctype="multipart/form-data" attribute to the <form> tag.

function upload_user_file( $file = array() ) {

      require_once( ABSPATH . 'wp-admin/includes/admin.php' );

      $file_return = wp_handle_upload( $file, array('test_form' => false ) );

      if( isset( $file_return['error'] ) || isset( $file_return['upload_error_handler'] ) ) {
          return false;
      } else {

          $filename = $file_return['file'];

          $attachment = array(
              'post_mime_type' => $file_return['type'],
              'post_title' => preg_replace( '/\.[^.]+$/', '', basename( $filename ) ),
              'post_content' => '',
              'post_status' => 'inherit',
              'guid' => $file_return['url']
          );

          $attachment_id = wp_insert_attachment( $attachment, $file_return['url'] );

          require_once(ABSPATH . 'wp-admin/includes/image.php');
          $attachment_data = wp_generate_attachment_metadata( $attachment_id, $filename );
          wp_update_attachment_metadata( $attachment_id, $attachment_data );

          if( 0 < intval( $attachment_id ) ) {
              return $attachment_id;
          }
      }

      return false;
}

Note: If this is your first time adding code snippets in WordPress, then please refer to our guide on how to properly copy / paste code snippets in WordPress, so you don’t accidentally break your site.

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