Title: Exclude folder during scan? Last modified: October 2, 2018 --- # Exclude folder during scan? * Resolved [jacktester](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jacktester/) * (@jacktester) * [7 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/exclude-folder-during-scan/) * Is it possible to exclude a specific subfolder of the uploads directory. * I use WP All Import which stores all it’s import files in a /wpallimport folder in the uploads directory, there are some 20,000 files in there, mostly images, that are obviously not in the media library and Media Cleaner scans and lists them all. * It would be vastly more efficient if I could tell it not to bother scanning that particular directory in the first place. Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 17 total) 1 [2](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/exclude-folder-during-scan/page/2/?output_format=md) [→](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/exclude-folder-during-scan/page/2/?output_format=md) * Plugin Author [Jordy Meow](https://wordpress.org/support/users/tigroumeow/) * (@tigroumeow) * [7 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/exclude-folder-during-scan/#post-10754584) * Hi, * It’s a bit complicated to do right now (UI-wise especially) but I am thinking of adding a simple option. If checked, it will scan everything. If not, it will only scan the folders YYYY-MM (the ones naturally created by WP to store upload images). Do you think that would fix most of your issue? * Thread Starter [jacktester](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jacktester/) * (@jacktester) * [7 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/exclude-folder-during-scan/#post-10758824) * Hi Jordy * We don’t use the YYYY/MM folders, in hindsight this might have been a bad idea as we now have 177,000 files in our uploads folder, but we didn’t anticipate that at the time and somewhat surprisingly it doesn’t appear to be causing any performance issues, as most pages on the website load between 600ms and 1200ms with Chromes browser cache disabled in DevTools. * That said I’m sure it may still be useful for some people who might be in a similar boat, as there are many plugins that store files in sub-folders of the uploads directory. * Would it also however not be possible to scan /uploads excluding sub-folders that don’t have the YYYY/MM naming format. Presumably anything in the WordPress media library would either be in /uploads or in a YYYY/MM directory, anything else would likely be plugin related files? Naturally this would be best in the form a check-box as you say, as it would also be handy to be able to scan for files leftover by removed plugins. * In terms of a regex it would look like this: `^\/uploads(\/([0-9]{4})?\/([0-9]{ 2}))?$` * [Christos Chatzaras](https://wordpress.org/support/users/cybercr33p/) * (@cybercr33p) * [7 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/exclude-folder-during-scan/#post-10760918) * Having thousands of files in a single directory will not make your website slower. But it will make slower other functions, for example doing a tar, zip or rsync in a directory with thousands of files will be slower. * Plugin Author [Jordy Meow](https://wordpress.org/support/users/tigroumeow/) * (@tigroumeow) * [7 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/exclude-folder-during-scan/#post-10769247) * [@cybercr33p](https://wordpress.org/support/users/cybercr33p/) is right 🙂 But excluding folders (or files) is indeed a feature that is missing to Media Cleaner. * Actually, I am thinking it would be good to have a regex for files and directories and to add examples in the documentation little by little. I guess that will be the best way to go about it. * Thread Starter [jacktester](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jacktester/) * (@jacktester) * [7 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/exclude-folder-during-scan/#post-10773890) * Thanks both, that’s good to know, I’ve been trying to find that out, but all I could find were threads giving theoretical maximum numbers of files, and never an explanation as to what problems it may cause having more than that in a single folder. * We don’t perform ant other functions in the uploads folder anyway, so not too much of an issue by the sounds of it. * I worked around the issue that was affecting me by temporarily moving the files out of the directory, as they were just in relation to an importing plugin moving them out doesn’t affect anything unless someone tries to run the import. * But I think an option to either regex match folders you want to exclude from the scan, or an option to include folders that you do, would be good, and possibly a simple checkbox option using the regex above for those less comfortable creating regexes? * [mrfm](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mrfm/) * (@mrfm) * [7 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/exclude-folder-during-scan/#post-10827073) * Hi, new pro user here. Just wanted to say I would like this feature as well. Thanks! 🙂 * Plugin Author [Jordy Meow](https://wordpress.org/support/users/tigroumeow/) * (@tigroumeow) * [7 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/exclude-folder-during-scan/#post-10828117) * It has already been coded, and it will be part of the new version 🙂 Please try it, and let’s see how we can improve it. Cheers 🙂 * Plugin Author [Jordy Meow](https://wordpress.org/support/users/tigroumeow/) * (@tigroumeow) * [7 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/exclude-folder-during-scan/#post-10845660) * Hi everyone! The new version is out. Please try the new filters, I am looking forward to your feedback 🙂 * [mrfm](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mrfm/) * (@mrfm) * [7 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/exclude-folder-during-scan/#post-10846469) * Great! Will try it. Just an idea but you might want to add an exclude example to your tutorial for people new to RegEx. I think the below should work: * ^\b([a-z0-9]+)\b(?