Grade A

Clean Image Filenames

Name: Clean Image Filenames
Rating: 4.6 (21 reviews)
Author: Upperdog

⤓ Download v1.5 on WordPress.org ↗

by Upperdogupdated 2026-01-14✨The Quiet Achiever

Relief comes when your accented filenames finally stop breaking your site.

HealthyGrowing

85/100

This simple utility reliably sanitizes filenames during upload to prevent migration errors.

Loved30/40

Trustworthy14/15

Fair & Honest15/15

Maintained15/18

Momentum11/12

✂️

You might not need this plugin. Its core job is small enough to live in your theme's functions.php.

Show the snippet

add_filter( 'sanitize_file_name', function( $filename ) {
    // Transliterate accented characters to ASCII equivalents
    $filename = remove_accents( $filename );

    // Separate name from extension
    $ext  = pathinfo( $filename, PATHINFO_EXTENSION );
    $name = pathinfo( $filename, PATHINFO_FILENAME );

    // Remove any characters that are not alphanumeric, dashes, or underscores
    $name = strtolower( $name );
    $name = preg_replace( '/[^a-z0-9\-_]/', '-', $name );
    $name = preg_replace( '/-+/', '-', $name );
    $name = trim( $name, '-' );

    return $ext ? "{$name}.{$ext}" : $name;
} );

Keep in mind:The plugin adds a settings page to limit conversion to images only or all file types; this snippet always converts all uploaded files.

More plugins you can skip →

Active installs

~35,000

our estimate · wp.org shows 30k+

→ on track for 40k+in ~4 months

Rating

4.6★

21 ratings

Trend · vs a year ago

+46%

Growing fast

25 → 37 installs/day

Downloads over time

real new installs per day · release spikes shown separately from the trend

2025-04-302025-08-082025-11-162026-02-232026-06-03

organicrelease spikerelease tailorganic trend · 14d rolling median

Growing fast · +46% in the last year

25/day a year ago→37/day today

Reviews

what people actually say

Clean Image Filenames is a well-regarded, set-and-forget utility that strips special characters and diacritics from uploaded filenames, with users frequently wishing it were part of WordPress core, though a small number of critics find it lacks in-dashboard documentation and question its legitimacy.

What people like

+Reliably converts special characters and diacritics (e.g., umlauts, accented letters) in filenames on upload without any issues reported×7
+Prevents file migration and backup failures caused by special-character filenames×2
+Saves time for site owners whose clients upload files with non-standard names×2
+Works across multiple sites without problems
+Multiple users feel the functionality should be built into WordPress core×3

Common complaints

−No in-dashboard instructions or guidance provided for users
−At least one user dismisses the plugin as illegitimate without further explanation

Review trustReviews look organic

4.57★Verified rating — holds steady vs the raw 4.60★
0%One-shot reviewers — most reviewers are active community members

Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower

Not enough review history.

All-time ratings · 21 total

5★

4★

3★

2★

1★

Latest reviews · 21 analyzed

2022-12-19★★★★★Works as expected Kuuak
2022-06-07★★★★★Very Good Plugin novakpeter
2022-03-17★★★★★Bogus Plugin!jitbd
2021-10-27★★★★★Made my Day doomsoul
2019-02-23★★★★★Perfect for Danish sites :)Bjarne Oldrup
2019-02-10★★★★★Very good plugin miro382
2018-12-18★★★★★Must have for every site. Excellent!hexcross
2018-10-25★★★★★No Doc, not clue where this plugin is to scan files wireB
2018-10-04★★★★★Does what it says felixprojekt
2018-03-13★★★★★Very, very good!digtialv

Releases

recent versions from WordPress.org SVN

2026-01-14v1.5
2024-03-19v1.4
2022-10-26v1.3
2020-08-09v1.2.1
2018-02-19v1.2
2017-10-31v1.1.1
2014-12-14v1.1
2014-11-27v1.0

For developers & the curious

the raw signals behind the grade — none of this is on the friendly summary above

Download signals

Baselines are computed on organic days only — release spikes and their tails are excluded, so they're not inflated by the auto-update wave.

Baseline · median of last 7 organic days

Prior 7-day baseline

117

Floor · 25th percentile over 14 days

252

Mean release-day peak (30d)

268

Latest day · 2026-06-03(spike)

-15.4%

Week-over-week organic trend

Review signals

Concentration and drive-by metrics drive the review-burst and fake-review flags. 30–40% solo reviewers is normal; we only flag the extremes.

—

Max month share · biggest single 30-day window

—

Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty

86%

5★ share in analyzed sample

Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity

—

Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo

4.57 → 4.57★

Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered