Written by Admin on 2025-05-06

How to Forbid Picture Download on WordPress

WordPress is a popular content management system that supports the creation and publication of various types of content, including images. While many users enjoy sharing images with their readers, some may wish to protect their images from being downloaded or used without permission. Thankfully, WordPress offers several methods to forbid picture download and safeguard your creative work.

Disable Right-Clicking

The easiest and most popular way to prevent picture download on WordPress is by disabling the right-click menu. This approach is not foolproof, but it makes it more difficult for an average person to save an image from your website.

To implement this solution, you can install a plugin such as No Right Click Images Plugin for WordPress or WP Content Copy Protection & No Right Click. These plugins stop image downloads by disabling the right-click option, and sometimes the copy and paste hotkeys. If you're not interested in using plugins, you can add a small piece of code to your WordPress theme. Open your WordPress theme editor and paste this code into the functions.php file:

php function safe_image() { global $post, $posts; if ( !empty( $post->ID ) ) { $content = $post->post_content; $searchFor = '/(<img.*src=\")(.*?)(\".*?>)/i'; $replaceWith = '$1$2" oncontextmenu="return false"'.$3; $content = preg_replace( $searchFor, $replaceWith, $content ); $post->post_content = $content; return $post; } } add_filter( 'the_post', 'safe_image', 10 );

This code adds an 'oncontextmenu' attribute to each image element in the content, which prohibits right-clicking on the image. Of course, a tech-savvy user may find a way to bypass the block. But for the non-tech-savvy ones, it should work well.

Watermark Your Images

Another effective way to forbid picture download on WordPress is by watermarking. It embeds your name, website, or logo on your images, making it harder for someone to use it without attribution.

To watermark your images, you can use third-party software such as Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, or online editors like Canva or PicMonkey. You can also install WordPress plugins such as Easy Watermark, Image Watermark, or Watermark WP Image Protect.

Moreover, you can use text-only watermarks or create custom image-based watermarks that are hard to remove. Consider watermarking only the high-quality, unique, or valuable images rather than all your pictures, as it may interfere with the user experience.

Disable Hotlinking

Hotlinking is the practice of embedding an image from someone else's website in your own content. When someone hotlinks your images, it consumes your bandwidth, slows down your website, and often disregards your copyright.

To forbid hotlinking on WordPress, you can create an .htaccess file in your WordPress root directory and add the following lines of code:

RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$ RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http(s)?://(www\.)?yourdomain.com [NC] RewriteRule \.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif)$ - [NC,F,L]

This code redirects anyone who tries to hotlink your images to a different page or shows a forbidden message, depending on your hosting configuration. Replace yourdomain.com with your website's domain name and add or remove more file extensions if needed. If you're not comfortable editing code files, you can use a WordPress plugin such as Hotlink Protection.

In conclusion, forbidding picture download on WordPress is not 100% secure, but it's still a worthwhile exercise to protect your content and intellectual property. Consider using a combination of these methods, depending on your needs and preferences, and don't forget to regularly monitor your website for any unauthorized use of your images.